Refinancing a first mortgage puts legal principles in conflict when other, junior, liens also exist. On one hand, the principle that seniority follows time priority leaves the new refinancing mortgage junior to mortgages that were junior to the original, refinanced first mortgage. On the other...

Consider the sale of mortgages by a loan originator to a buyer. As widely noted, such a transaction is subject to a severe adverse selection problem: the originator has a natural information advantage and will attempt to sell only the worst mortgages. However, a second important feature of this...

Regulators express growing concern over predatory loans, which we take to mean loans that borrowers should decline. Using a model of consumer credit in which such lending is possible, we identify the circumstances in which it arises both with and without competition. We find that predatory...

This paper supersedes Working Paper No. 12-8. We study trade between an informed seller and an uninformed buyer who have existing inventories of assets similar to those being traded. We show that these inventories may lead to prices that increase even absent changes in fundamentals (a .run-up.),...

Refinancing a first mortgage puts legal principles in conflict when other, junior, liens also exist. On one hand, the principle that seniority follows time priority leaves the new refinancing mortgage junior to mortgages that were junior to the original, refinanced first mortgage. On the other...

The authors study trade between a buyer and a seller when both may have existing inventories of assets similar to those being traded. They analyze how these inventories affect trade, information dissemination, and price formation. The authors show that when the buyer's and seller's initial...

This paper is superseded by Working Paper No. 13-14. We study trade between a buyer and a seller who have existing inventories of assets similar to those being traded. We analyze how these inventories affect trade, information dissemination, and prices. We show that when traders’ initial...

Regulators express growing concern over “predatory lending,” which we take to mean lending that reduces the expected utility of borrowers. We present a rational model of consumer credit in which such lending is possible, and identify the circumstances in which it arises with and without...