Determinants of household debt levels

Abstract

The aim of this thesis focuses on understanding the importance of housing as a provider of collateral for loans, enabling household consumption, as well as an analysis of the factors determining the proportion of the different types of debt in the financing of household assets. Household total debt is split into secured (mortgages) and unsecured debt (personal loans, car loans, overdrafts, credit card balances and other debt). In higher detail the developed model tries to capture in what way variables such as age, income, size, education, and tangibility influence housing and consumer debt. It is found that the determinants vary according to the different type of debt considered.

Date of Award	7 Aug 2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Ricardo Cunha (Supervisor)