Working Paper

Employment in the Great Recession : How Important Were Household Credit Supply Shocks?

Abstract: I pool data from all large multimarket lenders in the U.S. to estimate how many of the over seven million jobs lost in the Great Recession can be explained by reductions in the supply of mortgage credit. I construct a mortgage credit supply instrument at the county level, the weighted average (by prerecession mortgage market shares) of liquidity-driven lender shocks during the recession. The reduction in mortgage supply explains about 15 percent of the employment decline. The job losses are concentrated in construction and finance.

Keywords: Great Recession; Credit supply; Employment;

JEL Classification: E44; G21; R31;

https://doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2018.074

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)

Part of Series: Finance and Economics Discussion Series

Publication Date: 2018-11-13

Number: 2018-074

Pages: 60 pages