The Impact of Interest-rate Subsidies on Long-term Household Debt: Evidence from a Large Program

The responsiveness of long-term household debt to the interest rate is a crucial parameter for assessing the effectiveness of public policies aimed at promoting specific types of saving. This paper estimates the effect of a reform of Credito Bonificado, a large program in Portugal that subsidized mortgage interest rates, on long-term household debt. The reform established a ceiling in the price of the house that could be financed through the program, and provides plausibly exogenous variation in incentives. Using a unique dataset of matched household survey data and administrative records of debt, we document a large decrease in the probability of signing a new loan after the removal of the subsidy.

The impact of interest-rate subsidies on long-term household debt: Evidence from a large program

The responsiveness of long-term household debt to the interest rate is a crucial parameter for assessing the effectiveness of public policies aimed at promoting specific types of saving. This paper estimates the effect of a reform of Credito Bonificado, a large program in Portugal that subsidized mortgage interest rates, on long-term household debt. The reform established a ceiling in the price of the house that could be financed through the program, and provides plausibly exogenous variation in incentives. Using a unique dataset of matched household survey data and administrative records of debt, we document a large decrease in the probability of signing a new loan after the removal of the subsidy.Consumer borrowing, subsidies, quasi-natural experiment

The Impact of Fiscal Restraint on Budgetary Allocations for Women's Programs

How did the fiscal restraints exercised during the time of fiscal difficulties in 1997-2003 affect the gender/women-targeted programs of the Philippine government? What does a close scrutiny of the government budget reveal regarding the implicit gender implications of such restraints? Manasan and Villanueva disclose some of their findings.budget analysis, gender analysis, women's programs

Looking Closely on Who Benefits from Public Subsidies in Health Care: a Gender Perspective

Do men benefit more than women from government expenditures in health care? Or do women have the upper hand? Using a sex-differentiated incidence analysis of the various Department of Health program expenditures, this Notes' authors assess who indeed benefits from such expenditures in terms of gender. And why.gender, benefit incidence analysis, gender analysis, public spending in health, sex-differentiated incidence analysis

Topology Classes of Flat U(1) Bundles and Diffeomorphic Covariant Representations of the Heisenberg Algebra

The general construction of self-adjoint configuration space representations of the Heisenberg algebra over an arbitrary manifold is considered. All such inequivalent representations are parametrised in terms of the topology classes of flat U(1) bundles over the configuration space manifold. In the case of Riemannian manifolds, these representations are also manifestly diffeomorphic covariant. The general discussion, illustrated by some simple examples in non relativistic quantum mechanics, is of particular relevance to systems whose configuration space is parametrised by curvilinear coordinates or is not simply connected, which thus include for instance the modular spaces of theories of non abelian gauge fields and gravity.Comment: 22 pages, no figures, plain LaTeX file; changes only in details of affiliation and financial suppor