The purpose of paper is to review the policy responses to the US mortgage market crisis and assess how much the market has changed. There were many contributors to the meltdown of the US mortgage market. As summarized by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the major causes of the crisis...

We combine two datasets to examine whether the presence of banks affects the profitability and outreach of microfinance institutions. We find evidence that competition matters. Greater bank penetration in the overall economy is associated with microbanks pushing toward poorer markets, as...

Christopher D. Carroll is an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University Baltimore and research associate at NBER. He obtained his BA from Harvard University in 1986 and his PhD from MIT in 1990. He first worked as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board and later took a job at Johns...

Most corporate loans are priced at rounded spreads, e.g. spreads that are a multiple of 25 basis points. Using a sample of 16,598 loan tranches signed by US borrowers between January 1988 and December 2010, this study explores the determinants of such interest rate clustering in the corporate...

Adverse selection inherent in the bank-borrower relationship typically intensifies during crises. This problem is expecially severe in emerging markets, characterized by weak institutions and banks with poorly developed monitoring and screening abilities. Exploiting a unique sample of Vietnamese...

In this paper we explore the effects of alternative combinations of fiscal and monetary policies under different income distribution regimes. In particular, we aim at evaluating fiscal rules in economies subject to banking crises and deep recessions. We do so using an agent-based model populated...

In this paper, we demonstrate that cultural borders in international finance resurge during financial crises. To investigate the role of cultural borders during both tranquil and crisis periods, we employ a unique data set that focuses on Eurozone cross-border depositing in a gravity-model...

This study develops estimates of expected loss severities on mortgage exposures using data from Florida during the Great Recession. This paper marks the first attempt at addressing sample selectivity in the context of loss models. We also construct measures of home equity that are more accurate...

Mortgage markets in developing economies are often confined to private networks. Inadequate registration of property rights has been blamed for this, but it is questionable whether registration provides a simple and complete solution. This paper addresses this issue by analysing the Low...