This paper presents a novel model of the lending process that takes into account that loan officers must spend time and effort to originate new loans. Besides generating predictions on loan officers' compensation and its interaction with the loan review process, the model sheds light on why...

We present a simple model of personal finance in which an incumbent lender has an information advantage vis-a-vis both potential competitors and households. In order to extract more consumer surplus, a lender with sufficient market power may engage in "irresponsible" lending, approving credit...

This paper considers a firm that has to delegate to an agent, such as a mortgage broker or a security dealer, the twin tasks of approaching and advising customers. The main contractual restriction, in particular in light of related research in Inderst and Ottaviani (2007), is that the firm can...