Household Debt and Social Interactions

SAFE Working Paper No. 1

51 Pages Posted: 29 Jan 2013 Last revised: 27 Mar 2014

See all articles by Dimitris Georgarakos

Dimitris Georgarakos

European Central Bank (ECB) - Directorate General Research; Center for Financial Studies (CFS)

Michael Haliassos

Goethe University Frankfurt - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration; CEPR; NETSPAR; Goethe University Frankfurt - Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS)

Giacomo Pasini

Ca' Foscari University of Venice; Netspar

Multiple version iconThere are 5 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 6, 2013

Abstract

Can concern with relative standing, which has been shown to influence consumption and labor supply, also increase borrowing and the likelihood of financial distress? We find that perceived peer income contributes to debt and the likelihood of financial distress among those who consider themselves poorer than their peers. We use unique responses describing perceived peer characteristics from a Dutch population-wide survey to handle major challenges of uncovering social interaction effects on borrowing: (i) debts, unlike conspicuous consumption, are often hidden from peers, and (ii) location is missing in anonymized data. We employ several approaches to uncover exogenous, rather than correlated, effects.

Keywords: household finance, household debt, social interactions, mortgages, consumer credit, informal loans

JEL Classification: G11, E21

Suggested Citation

Georgarakos, Dimitris and Haliassos, Michael and Pasini, Giacomo, Household Debt and Social Interactions (December 6, 2013). SAFE Working Paper No. 1, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2208516 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2208516

Dimitris Georgarakos

European Central Bank (ECB) - Directorate General Research ( email )

Sonnemannstrasse 20
Frankfurt am Main, 60314
Germany

Center for Financial Studies (CFS) ( email )

Grüneburgplatz 1
Frankfurt am Main, 60323
Germany

Michael Haliassos (Contact Author)

Goethe University Frankfurt - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration ( email )

Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 3
PF H32
Frankfurt am Main, D-60323
Germany

CEPR

London
United Kingdom

NETSPAR ( email )

P.O. Box 90153
Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands

Goethe University Frankfurt - Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) ( email )

Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1
Frankfurt, 60323
Germany

Giacomo Pasini

Ca' Foscari University of Venice ( email )

Cannaregio 873
Venice, 30121
Italy
+39 041 234 9171 (Phone)
+39 041 2349176 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/unive.it/pasini

Netspar ( email )

P.O. Box 90153
Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://www.netspar.nl/people/researchfellows/pasini/

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