This paper studies whether the interplay of social comparisons in housing and rising income inequality contributed to the household debt boom in the US between 1980 and 2007. We develop a tractable macroeconomic model with general social comparisons in housing to show that changes in the...

Using a nationally representative panel of consumer credit records for the US from 1999 to 2021, we document a positive correlation between child and parent homeownership. We propose a new causal mechanism behind this relationship based on parents extracting home equity to help finance their...

We examine the effect of undiagnosed memory disorders on credit outcomes using nationally representative credit reporting data merged with Medicare data. Years prior to eventual diagnosis, average credit scores begin to weaken and payment delinquency begins to increase, overall and for mortgage...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises that play a central role in U.S. residential mortgage markets. In recent years, policymakers became increasingly concerned about the size and risk-taking incentives of these two institutions. In September 2008, the federal...

The last decade has brought about substantial mortgage innovation and increased refinancing. The objective of this paper is to understand the determinants and implications of mortgage choice in the context of a general equilibrium model with incomplete markets. The equilibrium characterization...