The Great Recession has focused renewed attention on the role of household leverage in the business cycle. Household debt overhang and the ensuing process of deleveraging are often cited as factors holding back economic recovery. This paper studies the relationship between household debt and economic performance during the Great Depression in the U.S. on the […]

in: Hubert Bonin, Niels-Viggo Haueter, Alfredo Gigliobianco, and Harold James (ed.) Public Policies and the Direction of Financial Flows, Bucharest 2012 This paper tracks the history of government intervention in the U.S. mortgage market between 1932 and the 1960s, a period in which the system for housing finance underwent a fundamental transformation. Whereas prior to […]