The Swedish households’ debt relative to income has increased for some time now, with the Riksbanks’ executive board expressing its concern for the risk it brings. It has been debated whether or not to take the high indebtedness into account when setting the policy rate. There is at the same time no consensus about the relationship between the repo rate and household debt. This study aims to examine the effect of a change in the repo rate on household debt-to-income ratio, using a VAR-model. The result is that a 1 percentage point shock to the repo rate for one quarter will have a negative impact on the household debt-to-income ratio by 1.75 percentage points after about 8 quarters. However this may not decrease the risk associated with the debt due to higher unemployment.

We investigate the effects of house- and condominium prices on a household's debt-to-income based on the type of municipality. With data from 2010-2017 for all of Sweden's municipalities we use a panel data regression and find that both house- and condominium price has a significant effect on debt-to-income with control variables of age, age! and education added to the model. The difference in effect on debt-to-income, depending on the type of the municipality is most significant between rural and metropolitan when we investigate condominium prices and between rural and urban when we investigate house prices meaning that there is a difference in effect depending on the type of the municipality. We determine that the effect of condominium price is highest for metropolitan, and the effect of house price is highest for urban.

I takt med de låga bolåneräntorna och de skenande bostadspriserna i Sverige har skuldsättningen och skuldkvoten i de svenska hushållen ökat markant de senaste åren. Då en högt skuldsatt befolkning utgör en risk vid en makroekonomisk störning har Finansinspektionen, i syfte för att bromsa denna utveckling, tagit fram finanspolitiska regleringar som belåningsgrad och amorteringskrav. Ännu en finanspolitisk reglering, i form av ett skuldkvotstak, diskuteras om det ska lagstadgas för att fortsätta bromsa den svenska skuldsättningen.  Med hjälp av kvalitativa undersökningar i form av fem semistrukturerade intervjuer och analys av finansiella rapporter från myndigheter ämnar denna uppsats att undersöka hur ett lagstadgat skuldkvotstak skulle påverka den svenska bostadsmarknaden samt hur den praktiska påverkan skiljer sig från den teoretiska.  Uppsatsens slutsats är att ett lagstadgat skuldkvotstak inte kommer påverka bostadsmarknaden så markant. En viss minskning i efterfrågan kommer antagligen att ske, men då bankerna redan idag har starka regleringar kommer ytterligare en reglering inte ha en så signifikant påverkan på bostadsmarknaden. Då Stockholm har en högre andel bostadsrätter än Göteborg och Malmö kommer minskningen i pris-, transaktions-, och byggmarknaden med stor sannolikhet vara större i Stockholm.  Denna studie bidrar till ny och ökad kunskap genom att tillhandahålla djupare förståelse kring effekterna av ett lagstadgat skuldkvotstak på den svenska bostadsmarknaden. / In line with the low mortgage rates and the high housing prices in Sweden, debt and debt ratios in Swedish households have increased rapidly in recent years. Since a highly indebted population poses a risk in the situation of a macroeconomic disturbance, the Financial Supervisory Authority has developed fiscal regulations such as loan ratios and amortization requirements, in aim of slowing down the development of the risk. In addition, another fiscal regulation, the debt-to-income limit, is being discussed as to whether or not it should be established to continue the process of slowing down the Swedish debts.  Through qualitative approach in the form of five semi-structured interviews and analysis of financial reports from authorities, this paper aims at investigating how a statutory debt-to-income limit would affect the Swedish housing market and how the practical impact differs from the theoretical. The conclusion is that a statutory debt-to-income limit does not affect the housing market so significantly. A certain decrease in demand is likely to happen, but since the banks already have strong regulations, further regulation will not have such a significant impact on the housing market. Since Stockholm has a higher proportion of condominiums than Gothenburg and Malmö, the effects on the price, transaction, and construction market will with great probability be larger in Stockholm. This study contributes to a new knowledge by providing a deeper understanding on how a statutory debt-to-income limit would affect the Swedish housing market.

The relationship between debt and income is an indicator in the stability for households to face certain external shocks. A large debt to income will be costly if interest rates are high. This thesis will analyze the relationship between other economic factors regarding debt to income. Since monetary policy affects inflation and interest rates, analyzing their relationship with debt to income will give insight how they correlate. By using quarterly data over a period between 1987 and 2022, the regression model shows the largest positive correlation is between debt to income and house prices. Where inflation and unemployment have the two weakest correlation, both are negative, however, inflation becomes acceleration in inflation due to the transformationin percent. This meansthat the effect is displaying acceleration growth rather than one unit change.The negative relationship will result in a deceleration of growth regarding debt to income due to an increase in inflation which according to our study has a positive impact on the stability of the mortgage market in the short run.