We analyze data from two universities that allowed students to conceal grades from their transcripts during the Covid-19 pandemic. Across both institutions, we observe a significant and substantial gender concealment gap: women are less likely than men to conceal grades that would harm their...

We document wide dispersion in the mortgage rates that households pay on identical loans, and show that borrowers' financial sophistication is an important determinant of the rates obtained. We estimate a gap between the 10th and 90th percentile mortgage rate that borrowers with the same...

Interest rates have declined dramatically over the past 30 years. At the same time the birth rate has declined, and life expectancy has increased. Demographic changes leading to an older population have been proposed as an explanation for the decline in rates. However, this conjecture is...

What is the role of arbitrage trading in the U.S. Treasury market? We discuss the pricing of risk-free Treasury securities via no-arbitrage arguments and illustrate how this approach works in models of the term structure of interest rates. The article continues with an evaluation of market...

This paper investigates the impact of policy interest rate news from the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) on stock returns and volatilities of U.S. NYSE and German DAX listed commercial banks. We find that Fed news has the most influence on both U.S. and German...

This paper analyzes the contagion effects associated with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and identifies bank-specific vulnerabilities contributing to the subsequent declines in banks' stock returns. We find that uninsured deposits, unrealized losses in held-to-maturity securities, bank...

How far to go – and to remain – in the direction of highly expansionary monetary policy hinges on the balance of marginal benefits and costs of additional monetary easing and its expected evolution over time. This paper sketches a framework for assessing this balance and applies it to four...

This article makes an analytical comparison between simple, compound and continuous interest discount factors. It studies the equivalency relations between the three discount factors. An analysis is performed for a limited time period and of normal economy interest rates. It makes use of the...

Surprisingly little is known about the importance of mortgage payment size for default, as efforts to measure the treatment effect of rate increases or loan modifi cations are confounded by borrower selection. We study a sample of hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages that have experienced large rate...

Surprisingly little is known about the importance of mortgage payment size for default, as efforts to measure the treatment effect of rate increases or loan modifications are confounded by borrower selection. We study a sample of hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages that have experienced large rate...