For ten years interest rates in the Eurozone have been declining. This has created a situation where loan or bond prepayments and subsequent refinancing transactions are potentially beneficial for debtors. The advantageousness depends on the costs induced. We analyze the favorability of debt...

This paper presents a study of the role of the rating agencies during the 2008 financial crisis in the US. The rating agencies are embedded in an assurance market as knowers; that is, as active searchers or creators of information on the quality of mortgage backed securities (MBS). This market...

This paper uses a novel instrumental variables approach to quantify the effect that GSE purchase eligibility had on equilibrium mortgage loan terms in the period from 2003 to 2007. The technique is designed to eliminate sources of bias that may have affected previous studies. GSE eligibility...

This paper uses a novel instrumental variables approach to quantify the effect that GSE purchase eligibility had on equilibrium mortgage loan terms in the period from 2003 to 2007. The technique is designed to eliminate sources of bias that may have affected previous studies. GSE eligibility...

This paper uses a novel instrumental variables approach to quantify the effect that GSE purchase eligibility had on equilibrium mortgage loan terms in the period from 2003 to 2007. The technique is designed to eliminate sources of bias that may have affected previous studies. GSE eligibility...

Voters punish incumbent Presidential candidates for contractions in the local (county-level) supply of mortgage credit during market-wide contractions of credit, but they do not reward them for expansions in mortgage credit supply in boom times. Our primary focus is the Presidential election of...

We show that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), from its inception in the 1930s, did not insure mortgages in low income urban neighborhoods where the vast majority of urban Black Americans lived. The agency evaluated neighborhoods using block-level information collected by New Deal relief...

This paper describes New Deal farm mortgage debt relief programs, implemented through the Federal Land Banks and the Land Bank Commissioner. Along with the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, the analogous program for nonfarm residential mortgage borrowers, these were the first large-scale mortgage...

From 2000 to 2007, individuals, institutions, and pension funds rushed to invest in private-label mortgage-backed securities (MBS). They were attracted by reasonable returns and what they perceived to be very little risk. They were encouraged by agency ratings — incorporated into the offering...