scholarly journals Moving to a Job: The Role of Home Equity, Debt, and Access to Credit

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuliya Demyanyk ◽  
Dmytro Hryshko ◽  
María Jose Luengo-Prado ◽  
Bent E. Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
The United States ◽  
Home Equity ◽  
Access To Credit ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Significant Barrier ◽  
Out Of Area

We use individual-level credit reports merged with loan-level mortgage data to estimate how home equity interacted with mobility in relatively weak and strong labor markets in the United States during the Great Recession. We construct a dynamic model of housing, consumption, employment, and relocation, which provides a structural interpretation of our empirical results and allows us to explore the role that foreclosure played in labor mobility. We find that negative home equity is not a significant barrier to job-related mobility because the benefits of accepting an out-of-area job outweigh the costs of moving. This pattern holds even if homeowners are not able to default on their mortgages. (JEL D14, G01, J61, R23, R31)

scholarly journals A Clinical Economy of Speculation: Financial Trading and Gambling Disorder in Spain

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Gambling Disorder ◽  
Problem Gambler ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Financial Trading ◽  
Financial Speculation ◽  
The Individual

This article concerns itself with financial traders in Spain who have been diagnosed with gambling disorder. It analyzes what I call the clinical economy of speculation, in which the category of problem gambler is repurposed to draw new lines around proper financial trading. In exploring the expansion of post–financial crisis regulatory mechanisms for credit and debt, as well as widening inequalities across the field of investment, I depict how both traders and clinicians become invested in medicalizing trading as gambling disorder. My theorizing interrogates whether and why common speculative practices are seen as sick and unsafe when everyday people, instead of banks and other financial institutions, perform them. I argue that the pathologized trader is an attempt to regulate, at the individual level, the increasing use of borrowed capital to make financial profits. The commodification of debt, however, is not a gender-neutral development. Female traders pay a greater price for venturing into the heights of finance. This focus on gender brings into view the redefinition of credit and debt within the domain of trading, and shows the role of debt-fueled financial speculation in the expansion of financial markets. These ethnographic findings are particularly relevant in a country like Spain, where the Great Recession has bred more new millionaires than ever before, even as the smaller fish of the economy are being medicalized and sometimes even incarcerated.

“Longer than I Would’ve Originally Liked and Originally Thought”: Postsecondary Debt and Marriage Plans for Young Adults Coming of Age in the Great Recession

2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142110520
Author(s):  
Laura Napolitano ◽  
Patricia Tevington ◽  
Patrick J. Carr ◽  
Maria Kefalas
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Student Loans ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
The United States ◽  
Postsecondary Enrollment ◽  
Marital Partner ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Qualitative Work

While student loans play a large role in the financing of higher education, there has been relatively little qualitative work on how young adults understand their debt burdens and the debt’s perceived future impact. We examine this topic utilizing a sample of 105 young people from working-, middle-, and upper middle-class backgrounds who experienced young adulthood during the Great Recession. While most respondents are accepting of debt at the time of postsecondary enrollment, their inability to meet the demands of their debt leads to frustration and anxiety. Further, many respondents are concerned that this debt will impact their ability to support themselves and transition into the role of a marital partner, although this varies across social class backgrounds and debt levels. We argue that this debt, and its corresponding repercussions, are likely to contribute to the continued bifurcation of family life in the United States.

Path dependence, the COVID-19 crisis, and inequality in the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-206
Author(s):  
Daniele Tavani
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Us ◽  
Historical Trajectory

This paper considers both secular and medium-run trends to argue that the US economy was already vulnerable to shocks before the COVID-19 crisis. Long-run trends have shown a pattern of secular stagnation and increasing inequality since the 1980s, while the economy has displayed hysteresis during the sluggish recovery from the Great Recession. The immediate policy response through the Coronavirus, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act highlighted the coordinating role of fiscal policy on the economy, but also showcased limits, especially with regard to the paycheck protection program. The historical trajectory of the US economy before the COVID-19 crisis cast serious doubts on recent cries of ‘overheating’ and inflationary pressures that should supposedly arise from the $1.9 trillion relief package just signed into law by President Biden. Projecting forward to the long run, redistribution policies may provide useful first steps in reversing the trends of rising inequality and declining productivity growth that the US economy has seen over the last few decades.

scholarly journals Beyond the Great Recession: Labor Market Polarization and Ongoing Fertility Decline in the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fertility Rates ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Fertility Trends ◽  
Restricted Use ◽  
Racial Ethnic

In the years since the Great Recession, social scientists have anticipated that economic recovery in the U.S., characterized by gains in employment and median household income, would augur a reversal of declining fertility trends. However, the expected post-recession rebound in fertility rates has yet to materialize. In this study, I propose an economic explanation for why fertility rates have continued to decline regardless of improvements in conventional economic indicators. I argue that ongoing structural changes in U.S. labor markets have prolonged the financial uncertainty that leads women and couples to delay or forego childbearing. Combining statistical and survey data with restricted use vital registration records, I examine how cyclical and structural changes in metropolitan-area labor markets were associated with changes in total fertility rates (TFR) across racial/ethnic groups from the early 1990s to the present day, with a particular focus on the period between 2006-2014. The findings suggest that changes in industry composition – specifically, the loss of manufacturing and construction businesses – have a larger effect on TFR than changes in the unemployment rate for all racial/ethnic groups. Since structural changes in labor markets are more likely to be sustained over time, in contrast to unemployment rates which fluctuate with economic cycles, further reductions in unemployment are unlikely to reverse declining fertility trends.

scholarly journals The Recovery from the Great Recession: A Long, Evolving Expansion

2021 ◽  
Vol 695 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-48
Author(s):  
Jay C. Shambaugh ◽  
Michael R. Strain
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Real Wage ◽  
Wage Growth ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Annual Basis ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
United States Economy ◽  
The Business Cycle

Prior to 2020, the Great Recession was the most important macroeconomic shock to the United States’ economy in generations. Millions lost jobs and homes. At its peak, one in ten workers who wanted a job could not find one. On an annual basis, the economy contracted by more than it had since the Great Depression. A slow and steady recovery followed the Great Recession’s official end in summer 2009, but because it was slow and the depth of the recession so deep, it took years to reduce slack in labor markets. But because the recovery lasted so long, many pre-recession peaks were exceeded, and eventually real wage growth accumulated for workers across the distribution. In fact, the business cycle (including recession and recovery) beginning in December 2007 was one of the better periods of real wage growth in many decades, with the bulk of that coming in the last years of the recovery.

Perceived Income Changes, Saving Motives, and Household Savings

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 396-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Su Hyun Shin ◽  
Kyoung Tae Kim
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
The United States ◽  
Household Savings ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Negative Income ◽  
Income Shock ◽  
Saving Decisions

Using the 2007–2009 Survey of Consumer Finances panel dataset, we investigate whether and how changes in perceived income and saving motives are related to demand for household savings in the United States after the Great Recession. Households that perceive their current income as lower, relative to normal years are less likely to save than those who view that their income is the same as the reference point. This result holds only for those who experienced a significant negative income shock during the Great Recession. Among five major saving motives, saving for an emergency is an important factor in explaining the likelihood of saving. This study suggests that financial planners and educators should pay close attention to the role of households’ income perception and saving motives and should account for the resulting potential psychological biases in households’ saving decisions.

Real Estate

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Homburg
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
House Prices ◽  
Borrowing Constraints ◽  
Macroeconomic Models ◽  
Land Prices ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Quantitative Importance

Chapter 6 examines real estate as a neglected feature of actual economies. It begins with an empirical overview demonstrating the preeminent role of land as a part of nonfinancial wealth. Whereas many macroeconomic models represent nonfinancial wealth by a symbol K that is interpreted as machines and equipment (if not robots), the text makes clear that such items are of minor quantitative importance. In contemporary economies, nonfinancial wealth consists chiefly of real estate. This is the proper reason so many analysts conjecture a link between house prices and the Great Recession. Changes in house prices (primarily changes in land prices) operate on the economy through their influence on nonfinancial wealth. Nonfinancial wealth affects consumption directly and investment indirectly since it relaxes or tightens borrowing constraints. Building on the results obtained in previous chapters, the text studies housing manias and leverage cycles and relates its main findings to US data.

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