Why do households repay their debt in UK during the COVID-19 crisis?

Emmanuel Mamatzakis, Mike G. Tsionas and Steven Ongena

Journal of Economic Studies, 2023, vol. 50, issue 8, 1789-1823

Abstract: Purpose - In this paper, the authors investigate whether coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) impacts household finances, like household debt repayments in the UK. Design/methodology/approach - This paper employs a vector autoregressive (VAR) model that nests neural networks and uses Mixed Data Sampling (MIDAS) techniques. The authors use data information related to COVID-19, financial markets and household finances. Findings - The authors' results show that household debt repayments' response to the first principal component of COVID-19 shocks is negative, albeit of low magnitude. However, when the authors employ specific COVID-19-related data like vaccines and tests the responses are positive, insinuating the underlying dynamic complexities. Overall, confirmed deaths and hospitalisations negatively affect household debt repayments. The authors also report low persistence in household debt repayments. Generalised impulse response functions (IRFs) confirm the main results. As draconian measures, the lockdowns are eased and the COVID-19 shocks are diminishing, and household financial data converge to the levels prior to the pandemic albeit with some lags. Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that examines the impact of the pandemic on household debt repayments. The authors' findings show that policy response in the future should prioritise innovation of new vaccines and testing.

Keywords: COVID-19; Household debt; ANN; VAR; MIDAS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
Working Paper: Why do households repay their debt in UK during the COVID-19 crisis? (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jespps:jes-10-2022-0540

DOI: 10.1108/JES-10-2022-0540

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Studies is currently edited by Prof Mohsen Bahmani-Oskooee

More articles in Journal of Economic Studies from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().