This paper reviews the extant empirical studies of financial innovation. Adopting broad criteria, the authors found just two dozen studies, over half of which (fourteen) had been conducted since 2000. Since some financial innovations are examined by more than one study, only fourteen distinct...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises that are central players in U.S. secondary mortgage markets. Over the past decade, these institutions have amassed enormous mortgage- and non-mortgage-oriented investment portfolios that pose significant interest-rate risks to the...

U.S. commercial banks are increasingly using credit scoring models to underwrite small business credits. This paper discusses this technology, evaluates the research findings on the effects of this technology on small business credit availability, and links these findings to a number of research...

The roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become increasingly controversial in the modern world of residential mortgage finance. The authors describe the special features of these two companies and their roles in the mortgage markets and then discuss the controversies that surround the...

An important theoretical literature motivates collateral as a mechanism that mitigates adverse selection, credit rationing, and other inefficiencies that arise when borrowers hold ex ante private information. There is no clear empirical evidence regarding the central implication of this...

We test the implications of Flannery’s (1986) and Diamond’s (1991) models concerning the effects of risk and asymmetric information in determining debt maturity, and we examine the overall importance of informational asymmetries in debt maturity choices. We employ data from more than 6,000...

This paper examines differences in institutional risk profiles based on credit union membership type and membership expansion via “select employee groups,” or SEGs, which are now expressly allowed by the Credit Union Membership Access Act of 1998. A cross-sectional statistical model is...

This paper examines the policy issues with respect to resolving the possible failure of housing enterprises Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The authors compare and contrast these issues with those raised in the context of large bank failures and also identify important differences in the extant...

The authors examine the economic effects of small business credit scoring (SBCS) and find that it is associated with expanded quantities, higher average prices, and greater risk levels for small business credits under $100,000. These findings are consistent with a net increase in lending to...

We study recent changes in the geographic distances between small businesses and their bank lenders, using a large random sample of loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. Consistent with extant research, we find that small borrower-lender distances generally increased between...