A growing literature uses the Russell 1000/2000 reconstitution event as an identification strategy to investigate corporate finance and asset pricing questions. To implement this identification strategy, researchers need to approximate the ranking variable used to assign stocks to indexes. We...

Mortgage counseling is regarded as an integral tool in ensuring appropriate choices by prospective home buyers. We use micro-level data from an urban voluntary counseling program aimed at disadvantaged households to assess its effectiveness. We find substantially lower expost delinquency rates...

The meltdown in residential real-estate prices that commenced in 2006 resulted in unprecedented mortgage delinquency rates. Until mid-2009, lenders and servicers pursued their own individual loss mitigation practices without being significantly influenced by government intervention. Using a...

Analyzing account-level data from an account aggregator, we find that households increase consumption when they receive (expected) tax refunds, as if they face liquidity constraints. However, these same households smooth consumption when making payments in other years, primarily by transferring...

We document evidence consistent with retail day traders in the Forex market attributing random success to their own skill and, as a consequence, increasing risk taking. Although past performance does not predict future success for these traders, traders increase trade sizes, trade size...

We show that there exists significant heterogeneity across U.S. households in how uncertain they are in their expectations regarding personal and macroeconomic outcomes, and that uncertainty in expectations predicts households' choices. Individuals with lower income or education, more precarious...

Stock returns around acquisition announcements are widely viewed as being reflective of the net present value created by these transactions. As such, announcement returns should correlate with acquisition outcomes. Using a new measure of realized transaction-level acquisition failure, as well as...

We study the effects of securitization on renegotiation of distressed residential mortgages over the current financial crisis. Unlike prior studies, we employ unique data that directly observes lender renegotiation actions and covers more than 60% of US mortgage market. Exploiting...