Using several different datasets obtained from the German Central Bank (Deutsche Bundesbank) and the German Federal Statistical Office, we provide empirical evidence that savings and loan contracts (SLCs) are a macrosocial phenomenon that smooths housing demand by setting countercyclical...

The widespread use computer-based risk models in the financial industry in the last two decades enabled the marketing of more complex financial products to consumers, the growth of securitization and derivatives, and the development of sophisticated risk management strategies by financial...

When are banks fiduciaries of their customers and clients? This question is of more than theoretical interest given the organizational structure of modern financial institutions and the broad-ranging functions they perform. In this chapter of the Oxford Handbook of Fiduciary Law, I canvass...

For nearly two years, the two of us have had a running discussion of the costs and benefits of automatic stays in bankruptcy for qualified financial contracts (QFCs) such as derivatives and repurchase agreements, particularly those held by systemically important major dealer banks. Under current...

This article presents the following model of two regulatory classes of financial institutions interacting in financial and political markets to spur deregulation and riskier lending and investment, which in turn contributes to the severity of a financial crisis: 1) Regulation creates two...

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, a significant research effort has been made to better understand the links between household debt levels, financial stability risks, and the ongoing implications of the ‘debt overhang’ for economic growth. However, accurately measuring the...

We explore a mostly undocumented but important dimension of the housing market crisis: the role played by real estate investors. Using unique credit-report data, we document large increases in the share of purchases, and subsequently delinquencies, by real estate investors. In states that...

Approximately 30% of housing defaults are strategic: the homeowner is able to make the payments but rationally chooses not to do so due to negative equity. This document describes the Responsible Homeowner Reward (“RH Reward”), an incentive plan to deter strategic defaults by increasing the...

We examine the closeness of relationships between households and their mortgage lenders using survey data which provide information on the duration, geographical proximity and scope of all bank relationships of a representative sample of households. Our analysis is based on a sample of 470...

In this paper, we evaluate Danish homeowners' interest-rate sensitivity in terms of the partial effect of a 1 percentage point increase in interest rates on homeowners cash flows and balance sheets. We construct two measures to quantify the effect of an increase in interest rates on homeowners....