The payoff of many credit derivatives depends on the level of credit spreads. Inparticular, credit derivatives with a leverage component are subject to gap risk, a riskassociated with the occurrence of jumps in the underlying credit default swaps. Inthe framework of first passage time models, we...

This paper presents evidence that non-bank-originated sub-prime mortgages have a higher probability of default than bank-originated sub-prime mortgages, but only for loans with prepayment penalties. Evidence also indicates that non-banks price prepayment penalties less favorably to borrowers...

This paper presents evidence that non-bank-originated subprime mortgages have a higher probability of default than bank-originated subprime mortgages, but only for loans with prepayment penalties. Evidence also indicates that non-banks price prepayment penalties less favorably to borrowers than...

We study the determinants of the subprime mortgage loan spread, with a particular focus on funding liquidity and default-liquidity interaction effects. We find that sector-level as well as macro funding liquidity provision affected subprime loan rates, explaining a significant portion of the...

Automated valuation models (AVMs) are increasingly being used as a substitute for home appraisals in mortgage origination. This paper examines whether there are differences in the credit risk of mortgages originated using AVMs relative to traditional appraisals. This question is explored through...

Using new household-level data, we quantitatively assess the roles that job loss, negative equity, and wealth (including unsecured debt, liquid assets, and illiquid assets) play in default decisions. In sharp contrast to prior studies that proxy for individual unemployment status using regional...

Home appraisals are produced for millions of residential mortgage transactions each year, but appraised values are rarely below the purchase contract price: Some 30% of appraisals in our sample are exactly at the home price (with less than 10% of them below it). We lay out a basic theoretical...

Virtually no attention has been paid to the problem of cyclicality in debates over access to mortgage credit, despite its importance as a driver of tight credit. Housing markets are prone to booms accompanied by bubbles in mortgage credit in which lenders cut underwriting standards, leading to...

This paper provides an overview on classical and new methods for testing time series properties of migration matrices. It is well known that due to cyclical behaviour of the economy transition matrices for many credit portfolios cannot be considered to be constant through time. Further,...