Understanding how changes to local labor market conditions impact household spending and savings decisions is a central topic in labor economics. Frequently, housing is the largest item on a household's balance sheet, and therefore making monthly mortgage payments is often both the largest...

Debate exists on the relative importance of employment status and house price declines in accounting for the large number of mortgage defaults during the Great Recession.To avoid the complexities posed by potential interactions among house prices, employment status, and income, we propose the...

Many borrowers make extra principal payments on their mortgages (curtailers). Some of these curtailers subsequently go through foreclosure and lose any benefits from their curtailments. Such curtailers reveal ex-ante non-strategic preferences towards default. We contrast the default sensitivity...

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) provides mortgage forbearance relief to qualifying borrowers, whose loans are placed in a government backed mortgage pool. We analyze the effects of being ineligible for the program by examining the aftermath of the same...