A broadly accepted view contends that the 2007-09 nancial crisis in the U.S.was caused by an expansion in the supply of credit to subprime borrowers during the 2001-2006 credit boom, leading to the spike in defaults and foreclosures that sparked the crisis. We use a large administrative panel of credit le data to examine the evolution of household debt and defaults between 1999 and 2013. Our ndings suggest an alternative narrative that challenges the large role of subprime credit in the crisis.