Household Debt Composition across the Life Cycle in the light of the Global Financial Crisis: How is Ireland Di erent from the US and the UK

Households with negative net worth account for a much greater portion of thepopulation in Ireland as opposed to the UK, the rest of the Euro area, and the US.We align data from the HFCS, the WAS, and the SCF databases, to... [ view full abstract ]

Households with negative net worth account for a much greater portion of the
population in Ireland as opposed to the UK, the rest of the Euro area, and the US.
We align data from the HFCS, the WAS, and the SCF databases, to compare the
characteristics, likelihood and composition of households with negative net worth in Ireland, the UK, and the US. We establish that the recent bust left Irish households with a debt concentrated in property, owned by relatively young households, though not necessarily with the same income prospects as their counterparts in the UK, the US, and the EU. This study presents the rst round of results of a broader research project aiming to align large survey databases on household balance sheets from several developed economies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to combine these datasets.