摘要:We explore the sources of the decline in household nonmortgage
debt following the collapse of the housing market
in 2006. First, we use data from the Federal Reserve Board’s
Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey to document that, post2006,
banks tightened consumer lending standards more in
counties that experienced a more pronounced house price
decline (the pre-2006 “boom” counties). We then use the idea
that renters did not experience an adverse wealth or collateral
shock when the housing market collapsed to identify a general
consumer credit supply shock. Our evidence suggests that a
tightening of the supply of non-mortgage credit that was independent
of the direct effects of lower housing collateral values
played an important role in households’ non-mortgage debt
reduction. Renters decreased their non-mortgage debt more in
boom counties than in non-boom counties, but homeowners
did not. We argue that this wedge between renters and homeowners
can only have arisen from a general tightening of banks’
consumer lending stance. Using an IV approach, we trace this
effect back to a reduction in bank capital of banks in boom
counties.