To protect against losses when borrowers prepay to take advantage of declining interest rates,banks and insurance companies have come to rely on "yield maintenance" clauses. Theseprovisions require the borrower to make a lump sum payment to cover the lender’s potential lossfrom...

Mortgage terminations arise because borrowers exercise options. This paper investigates the apparently irrational behavior of those borrowers who do not terminate their mortgages even when the exercise value of the option is deeply in the money. We develop an option-based empirical model to...

Mortgage terminations arise because borrowers exercise options. Empirically the extent to which the call is in the money is strongly associated with exercise of the prepayment option, and the probability that the put option is in the money is strongly associated with exercise of the default...

Option theory which has dominated residential mortgage prepayment and default research implies that a borrower will exercise prepayment or default options if the call option or put option, respectively, is "in the money" by some optimal amount. Empirical research provides evidence that the...