We use loan level data from the NYC metropolitan area to examine the extent to which lenders attempted to prevent foreclosures with concessionary modifications during the Great Depression. We find no principal forgiveness in the sample and only a handful of concessionary mortgage modifications...

This paper examines the different legal frameworks for mortgage markets in different states, focusing on how and when they came into existence, including the British influence on laws in some of the older states, with a particular emphasis on foreclosures, including judicial vs. non-judicial...

No. In this paper we use a regression discontinuity approach to investigate whether affordable housing policies influenced origination or affected prices of subprime mortgages. We use merged loan-level data on non-prime securitized mortgages with individual- and neighborhood-level data for...

No, not directly. We use a regression discontinuity approach and present new institutional evidence to investigate whether affordable housing policies influenced the market for securitized subprime mortgages. We use merged loan-level data on non-prime mortgages with individual- and...

I examine tenure and mortgage choice in an equilibrium model in which households make decisions as if they discount hyperbolically rather than exponentially. Overall, hyperbolic discounting does not seem to explain the high rates of home ownership or portfolio concentration in housing in the...

This paper traces the history of mortgage law in the US. I explore the history of foreclosure procedures, redemption periods, restrictions on deficiency judgments, and foreclosure moratoria. The historical record shows that the most enduring aspects of mortgage law stem from case law rather than...

We assemble a unique dataset of commercial mortgages with information on loan characteristics at origination and subsequent performance. The most significant difference between securitized and balance sheet loans is the size of the loan. The loans in the highest loan size decile have a 43%...

We investigate whether race and ethnicity influenced subprime loan pricing during 2005, the peak of the subprime mortgage expansion. We combine loan-level data on the performance of non-prime securitized mortgages with individual- and neighborhood-level data on racial and ethnic characteristics...

We propose that financial institutions can act as asset insulators, holding assets for the long run to protect their valuations from consequences of exposure to financial markets. We demonstrate the empirical relevance of this theory for the balance sheet behavior of a large class of...

We analyze how Dodd-Frank mandated risk retention affects the information investors extract from issuers' retention choices in the CMBS market. We show that the required retention level is both binding and stringent. Although this implies issuers cannot signal using the level of retention, we...