This paper assesses the relative importance of two key drivers of mortgage default: negative equity and illiquidity. To do so, the authors combine loan-level mortgage data with detailed credit bureau information about the borrower's broader balance sheet. This gives them a direct way to measure...

This paper examines how instances of identity theft that are sufficiently severe to induce consumers to place an extended fraud alert in their credit reports affect their risk scores, delinquencies, and other credit bureau variables on impact and thereafter. We show that for many consumers these...

We use the 2012 South Carolina Department of Revenue data breach to study how data breaches and news coverage about them affect consumers' take-up of fraud protections. In this instance, we find that a remarkably large share of consumers who were directly affected by the breach acquired fraud...

Gentrification has provoked considerable debate and controversy about its effects on neighborhoods and the people residing in them. This paper draws on a unique large-scale consumer credit database to examine the mobility patterns of residents in gentrifying neighborhoods in the city of...

We construct a two-period model of revolving credit with asymmetric information and adverse selection.In the second period, lenders exploit an informational advantage with respect to their own customers. Those rents stimulate competition for customers in the first period. The informational...

This paper studies the link between credit availability and student loan repayment using administrative federal student loan data. We demonstrate that expansions and contractions in federal student loan credit to institutions with high default rates explain most of the time series variation in...