We show that the distribution of combined loan-to-value ratios (CLTVs) for purchase mortgages in the U.S. has been remarkably stable over the last 25 years. But there was a dramatic shift during the housing boom of the 2000s in the provision of high- CLTV loans through private sources, which...

Partisanship and political polarization are salient features of today’s society. We merge deeds records with voter rolls and show that political polarization is more than just “political cheerleading.” Descriptively, homeowners are more likely to sell their homes and move when their...

Partisanship and political polarization are salient features of today’s society. We merge deeds records with voter rolls and show that political polarization is more than just “political cheerleading.” Descriptively, homeowners are more likely to sell their homes and move when their...

Can social influence effects help explain regional heterogeneity in refinancing activity? Neighborhood social influence effects have been shown to affect publicly observable decisions, but their role in private decisions, like refinancing, remains unclear. Using precisely geolocated data and a...

The distribution of combined loan-to-value ratios (CLTVs) for purchase mortgages has been remarkably stable in the U.S. over the last 25 years. But the source of high-CLTV loans changed during the housing boom of the 2000s, with private securitization replacing FHA and VA loans directly...

I examine the effect of house price declines on voter participation using a novel person-level panel dataset. Contrary to what the “angry voter hypothesis” predicts, I find that a ten percent decline in local house prices decreases the participation rate of the average mortgaged homeowner by...