Abstract
The Korean consumer credit panel offers a well-organized set of microdata representing various characteristics of individual borrowers. To overcome the difficulty of fragmented microdata details, we construct a cluster of Korean consumers' credit, to develop a self-organizing map that visualizes individuals' characteristics along two dimensions. The result of cluster analysis reveals that most borrowers belong to one large cluster representing diligent borrowers who honor their loan payments. Conversely, several small clusters that represent borrowers with high default probability are identified, and we also found that these borrowers' characteristics vary. No significant change is found in the structure of the cluster, even when the aggregate amount of consumer credit is increased. Moreover, the expansionary monetary policy did not change the quantitative structure of household debt in Korea. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00181-021-02120-5.