This chapter considers the structure of mortgage finance in the United States and its role in shaping patterns of … on the design features of mortgage contracts that distinguish them from other loans and that have important implications … for issues presented in the rest of the chapter. We then explain how mortgage finance interacts with public policy …

Home appraisals are produced for millions of residential mortgage transactions each year, but appraised values are … institutional framework that governs mortgage lending lead to information loss in appraisals (that is, appraisals set equal to the … incidence of mortgage default at loan-to-value boundaries (notches) above which mortgage insurance rates increase. Appraisals …