Puerto Rico's Evolving Household Debts

Brown, Meta; Haughwout, Andrew F.; Lee, Donghoon; Scally, Joelle; Solimano, Magali; Van der Klaauw, Wilbert

Discussion Paper

Puerto Rico's Evolving Household Debts

Abstract: Debt and its performance play a critical role in economic development. The enormous increase in mortgage debt that took place during the run-up to the 2007 financial crisis and the contribution of that debt to the crisis underscore the importance of household debt to financial stability and economic growth. While we regularly report on household debt at the national level and for selected states in our Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, we have not reported separately on Puerto Rico. This post introduces metrics on household debt in Puerto Rico, which we plan to update regularly. Like our other reports on household debt, this analysis uses our FRBNY Consumer Credit Panel, which is based on anonymized credit data from Equifax. We also take a look at some data for Puerto Rico?s banking sector to complete the picture of household debt for the Commonwealth.

Keywords: Puerto Rico; Household Borrowing;

JEL Classification: D1; R1;