Long Shadow of the U.S. Mortgage Expansion: Evidence from Local Labour Markets

Mitra, Aruni and Wei, Mengying (2023): Long Shadow of the U.S. Mortgage Expansion: Evidence from Local Labour Markets.

Abstract

We construct U.S. county-level credit supply shocks by interacting the mortgage growth of multi-market lenders with a county’s initial exposure to those lenders. The credit shocks did not impact the local labour markets during the credit boom but had a negative effect during the Great Recession. While local unemployment rates recovered post-Recession, wage growth remained depressed. Further, a long-run increase in older firms’ employment share suggests a credit-induced reduction in business dynamism and labour demand. A mechanism through occasionally binding financial constraints tied to house prices can qualitatively explain these asymmetric effects of credit shocks in booms and busts.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: mortgage lending, credit supply shocks, local labour markets
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E24 - Employment ; Unemployment ; Wages ; Intergenerational Income Distribution ; Aggregate Human Capital ; Aggregate Labor Productivity; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles > E32 - Business Fluctuations ; Cycles; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E4 - Money and Interest Rates > E44 - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy; G - Financial Economics > G0 - General > G01 - Financial Crises; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G20 - General

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