This paper characterizes the features of an account-based payment card – including bank debit cards, prepaid debit cards, and payroll cards – that elicit a high take-rate among low- and moderate-income (LMI) households, particularly those without bank accounts. We apply marketing research...

We analyze the phenomenon that low- and moderate-income (LMI) tax filers exhibit a quot;preference for over-withholdingquot; their taxes, a measure we derive from a unique set of questions administered in a dataset of 1,003 households, which we collected through the Survey Research Center at the...

We analyze the phenomenon that low- and moderate-income (LMI) tax filers exhibit a quot;preference for over-withholdingquot; their taxes, a measure we derive from a unique set of questions administered in a dataset of 1,003 households, which we collected through the Survey Research Center at the...

We examine the role of monetary policy in the housing bubble. Our review examines the setting of monetary policy in the middle of this decade, the impetus from monetary policy to the housing market, and other factors that may have contributed to the run-up, and subsequent collapse, in house prices.

A central question in the literature on mortgage default is at what point underwater homeowners walk away from their homes even if they can afford to pay. We study borrowers from Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada who purchased homes in 2006 using non-prime mortgages with 100 percent...

This article highlights areas where economic research is needed to guide federal policymakers addressing the challenge of improving housing affordability. The author places these research recommendations in the framework of five key issues, reflecting policymakers' need to identify a rationale...

We examine the relationship between house price synchronicity and global financial conditions across 40 countries and about 70 cities over the past three decades. The role played by cross-border banking flows in residential property markets is examined as well. Looser global financial conditions...

The lack of property tax escrow accounts among subprime mortgages causes borrowers to make large lump-sum tax payments that reduce liquidity. Different property tax collection dates across states and counties create exogenous variation in the time between loan origination and the first property...