We argue that the 2005 bankruptcy abuse reform (BAR) contributed to the surge in subprime foreclosures that followed its passage. Before BAR, over-indebted mortgagors could free up income to pay the mortgage by filing bankruptcy and having their unsecured debts discharged. BAR blocks that...

The recent rise in subprime foreclosures has prompted restrictions at the federal, state, and municipal levels against a range of loan features loosely termed “predatory.” The effectiveness of federal regulation depends on the consistency of those features’ impacts on foreclosures in...

Provides original sociological research on the development of consumer credit scoring in the United States and its links to subprime mortgage finance.

The present paper tries to present the main events which marked the financial crisis of 2007-2008 in a timeline of crisis development, without making any additional comments on them. In the second part, the paper reviews the most recent papers on the causes of the crisis and tries to give an...

The first part of the paper describes how over time credit rating agencies ceased to play the role of information intermediaries. Rating agencies did not provide information about the risk associated with the securitized instruments, but they simply enabled structurers to create and maintain...

(Provides original sociological research on the development of consumer credit scoring in the United States and its links to subprime mortgage finance.)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a cohesive review of the major findings in the literature concerning the Global Financial Crisis. Design/methodology/approach – Papers published in top-rated finance and economics journal since the crisis up to the present were reviewed. A...

We study early default, defined as serious delinquency or foreclosure in the first year, among nonprime mortgages from the 2001 to 2007 vintages. After documenting a dramatic rise in such defaults and discussing their correlates, we examine two primary explanations: changes in underwriting...