This paper presents evidence that reductions in mortgage interest rates associated with prepayment penalties are greater for riskier borrowers, as measured by mortgage type, credit scores, and local incomes and education levels. This is consistent with an efficiency view arguing that, by...

The Chinese version of this paper can be found at "http://ssrn.com/abstract=2008149" http://ssrn.com/abstract=2008149.As could be expected, the global financial crisis is on everybody's mind and causing a lot of worries. The current crisis has reached the consumers globally and intensified...

On May 24, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case American Needle v. Nat'l Football League that the National Football League's trademark licensing practices are subject to review under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. This ruling reversed an earlier decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for...

Why do retail investors trade? To analyze the impact of professional advice on trading, we combine administrative and survey data from a large German bank. Investors who report that they always rely on their advisor's recommendations have a 25-percent-higher trading volume. Also, for investors...

Google's new “Interest Based Advertising” (IBA) program represents the company's first foray into what is generally called “Online Behavioral Advertising”: In order to deliver more relevant advertising, Google will begin tailoring ads delivered through AdSense on the Google Content...

Online privacy, child safety, free speech and anonymity are on a collision course. The 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) already mandates certain online privacy protections for children under 13, but many advocate expanding online privacy protections for both adolescents and...

It is estimated that payday lenders made $40 billion of loans in 2010. But these loans are controversial, with one of the politically charged claims being that the high interest rates on payday loans trap consumers in a “cycle of debt.” We test this claim by conducting a field experiment...

In cases of “bill shock” customers receive invoices from hundred to tens of thousands of Euro for use of mobile broadband when abroad. The EU Roaming Regulation requires operators to protect customers by providing prices and managing their monthly spending limit. In the USA, the FCC has an...

Over the past several years, young consumers have amassed increasing amounts of credit card debt – debt that many of them cannot afford to repay. Card companies' aggressive solicitation efforts have contributed to this growing problem, as have their common practice of extending credit to young...

This paper presents evidence that non-bank-originated sub-prime mortgages have a higher probability of default than bank-originated sub-prime mortgages, but only for loans with prepayment penalties. Evidence also indicates that non-banks price prepayment penalties less favorably to borrowers...