The authors examine whether a borrower's choice of automobile reveals information about future loan performance. They find that loans on most luxury automobiles have a higher probability of prepayment, while loans on most economy automobiles have a lower probability of default, even when holding...

A growing debate centers on how best to recognize (and price) government interventions in the capital markets. This study applies a method for estimating and valuing the government's exposure to credit risk through its loan and guarantee programs. The authors use the mortgage portfolios of...

We introduce a novel application of machine learning to compare the Pooling and Servicing Agreements (PSA) that govern asset-backed securities. The PSA is often viewed as mostly boilerplate legal text and thus may appear similar across deals despite heterogeneity in the underlying collateral and...

We examine the effect of direct mail (commonly referred to as junk mail) advertising on individual financial decisions by studying consumer choice of home equity debt contracts. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, we find that financial variables underlying the relative pricing of debt...