Stress Testing Household Debt in Korea

Meral Karasulu

No 2008/255, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Korean household debt has reached 148 percent of disposable income, high by emerging market standards. Most of this debt remains at variable rates, shifting the interest rate risk from better diversified financial institutions to households and increasing their sensitivity to macroeconomic shocks. This paper examines the sources of, and risks from, household debt by employing stress tests on household level panel data. Results suggest that a 100-300 bps increase in interest rates could increase distressed household debt household debt by 8½?17 percentage points (ppt). A drop in real estate prices by 10?30 percent could add another 4 ppt to distressed debt. Ongoing transition to amortizing mortgages in 2008?09 presents additional challenges as interest payments on debt are likely to increase further.

Keywords: WP; debt; interest rate; household debt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2008-11-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=22458 (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:imf:imfwpa:2008/255

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().