We study the effect of bank capital on the supply of mortgages. We fully control for endogenous matching between borrowers, loan contracts, and banks by submitting randomized mortgage applications to the major online mortgage broker in Italy. We find that: higher bank capital is associated with...

The role, informative or persuasive, of brand names in driving purchasing decisions is very much under debate. We exploit the rebranding of a mortgage lender to analyse households’ choice behaviour in response to brand popularity. Loan-level data on new mortgages suggest that (1) brand...

In this paper, we extend and calibrate with Italian data the Agent-based model of the real estate sector described in Baptista et al., 2016. We design a novel calibration methodology that is built on a multivariate moment-based measure and a set of three search algorithms: a low discrepancy...

We use data on one-participant retirement savings plans to identify a behavioral bias in savings decisions. Investors who earn top-decile returns increase contributions to their accounts more than other investors. Using characteristics of the investors, characteristics of their retirement...

We are in a digital era. Internet banking has been increasingly offered by banks (through simple websites and easy-to-use mobile apps) and demanded by customers for managing their own finances without going to the physical branch. The availability of this new channel to interact with financial...