We investigate the impact of institutions on financial development by analyzing the financial behavior of immigrants in the United States. We find that immigrants from countries with institutions that more effectively protect private property are more likely to own stock in the United States....

Given the growing popularity of e-commerce and m-commerce over the past few years, remote payments have become commonplace. Unfortunately, remote payments fraud has grown in response. On September 26, 2011, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Secure Remote Payment Council (SRPc)...

The authors measure the inflation experienced by demographic groups that likely received benefits from major government transfer programs during the period 1980–2010. They then compare the group-specific inflation measures with the transfer programs’ benefit adjustments, which are typically...

The sweeping overhaul of the nation’s financial regulatory system that was signed into law on July 21, 2010, will touch virtually every aspect of financial markets. This Chicago Fed Letter focuses on provisions in the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that affect...

This article compares default patterns among prime and subprime mortgages, analyzes the factors correlated with default, and examines how forecasts of defaults are affected by alternative assumptions about trends in home prices. The authors find that extremely pessimistic forecasts of home price...

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago will host a conference, Financial Literacy, Financial Education, and the Federal Reserve: Strategies for Success, on September 11, 2009. This article reviews some of the financial education activities throughout the Federal Reserve System.

This article describes the growing relationship between life insurance companies and the Federal Home Loan Banking (FHLB) system. Given the important role that both play in the U.S. financial system, it is important to understand how they are connected.

The authors’ findings indicate that homebuilder financing affiliates do make loans to observably riskier borrowers, but the loans made by homebuilders have lower delinquency rates than those made by unaffiliated lenders, even when loan and borrower characteristics are held constant.