This paper examines pricing of subprime first mortgages by brokers and lenders using data on loans in originated between the first quarter of 1998 to the first quarter of 2006 at seven large subprime mortgage lenders. The results provide little evidence that most consumers obtaining mortgages...

This study analyzes whether bankruptcy asset exemptions and state foreclosure laws affect borrowers' decisions to default on their mortgages and the lenders' incentives to settle the default outside the foreclosure. Using a rigorously specified empirical model and accounting for endogenous loan...

We analyze the effects of state predatory mortgage lending laws, which have been a model for recent changes in the United States Federal legislation enacted to regulate the mortgage contract terms common in higher-risk mortgage market segments. Using the Rothschild-Stiglitz approach to model...

This study analyzes the effects of state bankruptcy asset exemptions and foreclosure laws on mortgage default and foreclosure rates across different segments of the mortgage market. We found that the effects of these legal provisions are larger for sub-prime than for prime mortgages and larger...

The boom in the subprime mortgage market yielded many loans with high LTV ratios. From a large proprietary database on subprime mortgages, we find that choice of mortgage rate type is not linear in loan sizes. A fixed rate mortgage contract is a popular choice when loan size, measured by LTV...