Institutions often offer a menu of contracts to consumers in an attempt to create a separating equilibrium that reveals borrower types and provides better pricing. We test the effectiveness of a specific set of contracts in the mortgage market: mortgage points. Points allow borrowers to exchange...

In this paper, we investigate the determinants of household asset portfolios during the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Using an online longitudinal survey and focusing on a broad spectrum of assets, including stocks, gold, wealth management products, and houses, we show that more confirmed COVID-19...

Households are one of the key participants in the economy as they provide land, labor, and capital to the external economy, in exchange for incomes including rents, wages, interests, and profits; the incomes are then utilized to buy goods and services from the external economy again, rendering...

This paper tests one specific monetary transmission mechanism through households: portfolio rebalancing. We use a unique panel dataset of household's credit and debit card spending, ATM withdrawals, financial investments into risky assets such as mutual funds and equities, as well as bank...

This paper examines the effect of a regulatory action (the Home Valuation Code of Conduct) that was designed to reduce the incidence of inflated collateral valuations. We identify the impact of the regulation using a difference-in-difference identification strategy. Our baseline results confirm...

Yes, they do. State governments with risky defined benefit pension plans have higher borrowing costs, as measured by larger bond offering yield spreads. To control for the potential endogenous issue, we utilize the instruments of actuarial firms’ reputation, and direct flight between the state...

Financially constrained borrowers have the incentive to influence the appraisal process in order to increase borrowing or reduce the interest rate. We document that the average valuation bias for residential refinance transactions is above 5%. The bias is larger for highly leveraged...

The global landscape has seen the advent of new technology in offering innovative financial services and products and reshaping the financial sector, namely FinTech. In this review, we discuss the literature on recent FinTech development and its interaction with both banks and consumers. We...