The Truth in Savings Act mandates that financial institutions disclose certain information about the terms of consumer deposit accounts in specific forms and at specific times. Although many depository institutions provided disclosures of account terms before the act was passed in 1991, most did...

The cost of government regulation has become a political issue in recent years, and the cost is no less controversial for banks than for other types of businesses. The controversy has prompted several studies of regulatory costs in banking. This paper evaluates the evidence from those studies,...

This article presents a number of key findings from a review of the data that mortgage lending institutions reported for 2011 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The article documents home-lending activity reflected in the HMDA data and places the 2011 activity in historical context....

This paper reviews the behavioral literature on inter-temporal choice and decision making under uncertainty and assesses the evidence on behavioral influences affecting consumers' credit decisions. The evidence reviewed suggests that consumers often do not consider all information available in...

The boom in the subprime mortgage market yielded many loans with high LTV ratios. From a large proprietary database on subprime mortgages, we find that choice of mortgage rate type is not linear in loan sizes. A fixed rate mortgage contract is a popular choice when loan size, measured by LTV...

The boom in the subprime mortgage market yielded many loans with high LTV ratios. From a large proprietary database on subprime mortgages, we find that choice of mortgage rate type is not linear in loan sizes. A fixed rate mortgage contract is a popular choice when loan size, measured by LTV...

This study analyzes whether bankruptcy asset exemptions and state foreclosure laws affect borrowers' decisions to default on their mortgages and the lenders' incentives to settle the default outside the foreclosure. Using a rigorously specified empirical model and accounting for endogenous loan...

In 1968 Congress passed the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) to require written disclosures of key credit terms for consumers, including finance charges, payment sizes, payment totals, and interest rates mathematically calculated as a defined Annual Percentage Rate (APR). Much has changed in the...

Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) shields purchasers from financial risks of losses exceeding insured collateral values if vehicles become total losses. Yet surprisingly little is known about the sales of this product, or consumers' attitudes toward it. In this study, we report the results of a...