How do technological advancements in credit markets affect minority communities? We use the endorsement of FICO credit scores by the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) in mortgage underwriting to answer this question. The use of credit scores led to the sorting of prime and subprime lenders...

Using a dedicated set of questions in the 2014 Luxembourg Household Finance and Consumption Survey (LU-HFCS), we show that a substantial share of households contributes their own labour to the acquisition of their main residence. These contributions help households faced with credit constraints,...

This paper studies the role of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in the recent US housing boom-bust cycle. Using a difference-in-differences matching estimation, I find that the enhancement of CRA enforcement in 1998 caused a 7.7 percentage points increase in annual growth rate of mortgage...

I find that negative home equity causes a 2%-6% reduction in household labor supply. I utilize U.S. household-level data and plausibly exogenous variation in the location-timing of home purchases with a single lender. Supporting causality, households are observationally equivalent at origination...

I empirically analyze how changes in access to housing collateral affect homeowner borrowing behavior. To isolate the role of collateral constraints from that of wealth effects, I exploit the fully anticipated expiration of resale price controls on owner-occupied housing in Montgomery County,...

Using a sample of purchase mortgage applications reported in HMDA between 2001 and 2011, this paper estimates how the likelihood that an application is denied by the lender has changed over time after accounting for characteristics of loan applicants. Contrary to the observed decline in the...

Prior to an increase in the guaranty cap offered to mortgage lenders through the VA Home Loan program, I document nearly complete bunching of loan amounts at this cap. When the cap rises, I show that borrowers were more positively selected: they were more likely to repay their loans despite...

This paper analyzes data from a recently completed study of discrimination against African-American and Hispanic homebuyers when they visit mortgage lending institutions in two major metropolitan markets to make pre-application inquiries. It represents the first application of paired testing to...

With regard to the recent US house price cycle, we analyze how the interaction between housing supply restrictions, mortgage credit constraints and a price-to-price feedback loop affects house price volatility. Considering 247 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, we estimate a simultaneous boom-bust...

A growing literature (i.e. Jaffee, Lynch, Richardson, and Van Nieuwerburgh, 2009, Acharya and Schnabl, 2009) argues that securitization improves financial stability if the securitized assets are held by capital market participants, rather than financial intermediaries. I construct a quantitative...