We construct a life-cycle model that delivers realistic behavior for both equity holdings and borrowings. The key model ingredient is a wedge between the cost of borrowing and the risk-free investment return. Borrowing can either raise or lower equity demand, depending on the cost of borrowing....

This paper reviews recent research on mortgage default, focusing on the relationship of this research to the recent foreclosure crisis. Research on defaults was advanced both theoretically and empirically by the time the crisis began, but economists have moved the frontier further by improving...

The application of information technology to finance, or "fintech," is expected to revolutionize many aspects of borrowing and lending in the future, but technology has been reshaping consumer and mortgage lending for many years. During the 1990s, computerization allowed mortgage lenders to...

This paper documents large differences in mortgage prepayment behavior across racial and ethnic groups in the United States, which have significant implications for monetary policy, inequality, and pricing. Using a novel data set that combines administrative data on mortgage performance with...

We use a new methodology to assess mortgage pricing discrimination faced by minority borrowers. We identify a "menu problem" that comes from the multidimensional nature of mortgage pricing: When getting a mortgage, borrowers can choose to avoid closing costs and pay a high interest rate or...

We study the evolution of US mortgage credit supply during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the mortgage market experienced a historic boom in 2020, we show there was also a large and sustained increase in intermediation markups that limited the pass-through of low rates to borrowers. Markups...

We study the joint evolution of prices and rents of residential property. After constructing rent and price indices for renter- and owner-occupied properties, we decompose the change in the price of occupant-owned property into (1) changes in rent, (2) changes in the relative prices of investor-...

Boston's high housing costs reflect a historic failure to build enough units to satisfy demand. Interest rates and construction costs have risen recently, and the flow of new market-rate residential housing projects has slowed. To spur more construction, the City of Boston is considering various...

In this paper, we show that incomplete markets lead to trade imbalances. We use a two-period general equilibrium model with countries composed of heterogeneous households. We look at a world where, when markets are complete, countries engage in balanced trade; and we show that when some of those...

In this note we discuss the findings in Piskorski, Seru, and Vig (2010), as well as the authors´; interpretation of their results. First, we find that small changes to the set of covariates used by PSV significantly reduce the magnitude of the differences in foreclosure rates between...