This paper studies the impact of a new class of investors on the dynamics of U.S. housing affordability after the Financial Crisis. Using a novel instrumental variable and processing 85 million housing transactions, we find that investors' purchases increase the price-to-income ratio, especially...

We study how investors in housing markets have changed after the 2009 financial crisis and the consequences for the markets and the economy. We document several new facts: (a) Institutional investors have replaced individual investors. (b) Most new investors are buy-and-hold investors as they...

Using a new financial product (Credit Risk Transfers, CRTs) we study how markets would price hurricane risk in U.S. mortgages absent intervention from the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). We hand-collect a novel and detailed database to exploit CRTs' heterogeneous exposure to Hurricanes...

This paper proposes a tractable way to incorporate lending standards ("credit qualification thresholds") into macro models of financial frictions. Banks can reject borrowers whose risk is above an endogenous threshold at which no lending rate sufficiently compensates banks for the borrowers'...

We propose a quantitative model of lending standards with two reasons for inefficient credit: lenders' moral hazard from deposit insurance or government guarantees, and imperfect information about the persistence of asset price growth, which generates incorrect but rational beliefs in the...

This paper analyzes fertility and consumption decisions when the costs of raising a child and parents' income are stochastic and correlated. We model the decision to have a child similarly to the decision to exercise an option in finance literature. We obtain several new results relative to...