As a result of the CARES Act and subsequent administrative actions, more than 25 million student loan borrowers have had suspended payments on their federal student loans for more than two years. This suspension is scheduled to end later this year, and it remains uncertain how financially ready...

Student loans make up an increasing share of consumer debt in the U.S., particularly for younger borrowers. Research has shown that borrowers vary greatly in their ability to pay off their loans, and in how quickly they can do so. This Data Point provides a closer look at borrowers' use of...

Public subsidization of private goods often leads to crowd-out, reducing private spending. This effect is intended for a policy like the 2008 Lifeline phone subsidy expansion, which aimed to increase affordable access to services. Using state-level timing variation, I estimate that the expansion...

This paper studies how compliance behavior varies across competing service providers in the Lifeline phone subsidy program and assesses whether enlarging the set of providers improves program outcomes. In markets where firms compete to provide government benefits or services directly to...

Using a novel combination of mortgage datasets, we analyze the effects of two policy levers that influence the scope of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's (GSEs) involvement in the U.S. residential mortgage market. First, we find that small changes in mortgage guarantee fees charged by the GSEs were...

We use credit reports, survey data, and two natural experiments that increase health insurance coverage—Medicare eligibility and the Affordable Care Act's Under 26 provision—to study the financial protection provided by health insurance.

The data that mortgage lending institutions reported for 2008 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA) reflect the ongoing difficulties in the housing and mortgage markets. This article presents a number of key findings from an initial review of the 2008 HMDA data. In particular, it...