We examine how option compensation affects banks' risky mortgage origination and sale decisions before the financial crisis in 2008. We find that, in the period immediately before the financial crisis, option compensation has little impact on the riskiness of mortgages originated and is...

This paper measures the impact of three types of defaulter-friendly foreclosure laws on the behaviors of mortgage lenders in loan origination, and borrowers in default decision. To disentangle the "pure" influence of foreclosure laws from that of unobserved regional factors, we use the border...

This paper measures the impact of three types of defaulter-friendly foreclosure laws on the behaviors of mortgage lenders in loan origination, and borrowers in default decision. To disentangle the “pure” influence of foreclosure laws from that of unobserved regional factors, we use the...