Exploring Differences in Household Debt across the United States and Euro Area Countries

Household debt has played a central role in the global financial crisis, yet our understanding of it remains limited. We put U.S. household leverage in an international perspective, using household‐level data for the United States and 10 euro area economies. U.S. households have the highest prevalence of mortgage and consumer debt, hold comparatively large amounts and face higher debt burdens despite having higher income. We find that the U.S. economic environment is associated with a higher propensity to hold debt, primarily because a given level of collateral is associated with higher prevalence and larger amounts of mortgage debt in the United States.