For the third time in the last several decades, policymakers are contemplating an overhaul of mortgage-finance regulations. Despite the considerable attention paid to how ex ante regulations affect the availability of credit and the appropriateness of the mortgage products that lenders offer,...

We investigate the evolution of common law under overruling, a system of precedent change in which appellate courts replace existing legal rules with new ones. We use a legal realist model, in which judges change the law to reflect their own preferences or attitudes, but changing the law is...