This paper develops a general equilibrium model of the gender wage gap. The difference in earnings is a consequence of a demographic regularity--that men tend to marry younger women--which limits women's labor mobility. However, couples are always free not to marry, and do so only if it is in...

The academic literature, the popular press, and policymakers have all debated securitization's contribution to the poor performance of mortgages originated in the run-up to the recent crisis. Theoretical arguments have been advanced on both sides, but the lack of suitable data has made it...

Residential house price indexes (HPI) are used for a large variety of macroeconomic and microeconomic research and policy purposes, as well as for automated valuation models. As is well known, these indexes are subject to substantial revisions in the months following the initial release, both...

This paper assesses the relative importance of two key drivers of mortgage default: negative equity and illiquidity. To do so, the authors combine loan-level mortgage data with detailed credit bureau information about the borrower's broader balance sheet. This gives them a direct way to measure...

We quantify the role of heterogeneity in households’ financial constraints in explaining the large decline in consumption between 2006 and 2009. Using household-level data, we show that in addition to a direct effect of changes in house prices, there are sizable indirect effects from general...