COVID-19, bank deposits, and lending
During the pandemic, households accumulated savings in their deposit accounts as a result of a reduction in their spending, which occurred due to the restrictions on their mobility. This led to a significant increase in bank deposits for banks located in counties with a larger reduction in spending. Banks, in turn, used these additional funds to issue more real estate loans. This implies that policies that might affect household spending would lead to changes in the volume of deposits in the banking system, which have consequences on banks' loan supply.
Modelling household finances: A Bayesian approach to a multivariate two-part model
We contribute to the empirical literature on household finances by introducing a Bayesian multivariate two-part model, which has been developed to further our understanding of household finances. Our flexible approach allows for the potential interdependence between the holding of assets and liabilities at the household level and also encompasses a two-part process to allow for differences in the influences on asset or liability holding and on the respective amounts held. Furthermore, the framework is dynamic in order to allow for persistence in household finances over time. Our findings endorse the joint modelling approach and provide evidence supporting the importance of dynamics. In addition, we find that certain independent variables exert different influences on the binary and continuous parts of the model thereby highlighting the flexibility of our framework and revealing a detailed picture of the nature of household finances.