We study the distributional consequences of student debt forgiveness in present value terms, accounting for differences in repayment behavior across the earnings distribution. Full or partial forgiveness is regressive because high earners took larger loans, but also because, for low earners,...

The rapid rise in student loan balances has raised concerns among economists and policymakers. Using administrative credit bureau data, we find that nearly half of the increase in balances from 2010 to 2020 is due to deferred payments, largely driven by the expansion of income-driven repayment...

Robustness checks, such as adding controls or sample splits, are a standard feature of reduced-form empirical research. Because of computational costs of reestimating alternative models, they are much less common in structural research using simulation-based methods. We propose a simple...

This paper studies how private equity buyouts create value in higher education, a sector with opaque product quality and intense government subsidy. With novel data on 88 private equity deals involving 994 schools, we show that buyouts lead to higher tuition and per-student debt. Exploiting loan...

Information asymmetries are known in theory to lead to inefficiently low credit provision, yet empirical estimates of the resulting welfare losses are scarce. This paper leverages a randomized experiment conducted by a large fintech lender to estimate welfare losses arising from asymmetric...

The collapse in home prices during the Great Recession triggered a sharp drop in consumer demand by households, leading to massive employment losses. This paper examines the implications of these labor market shocks for the dramatic rise in student loan defaults, which originated during this...

We present both theory and evidence that increased competition may decrease rather than increase consumer welfare in subprime credit markets. We present a model of lending markets with imperfect competition, adverse selection and costly lender screening. In more competitive markets, lenders have...

This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of financial intermediation and the economic effects of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a large and novel small business support program that was part of the initial policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. We use loan-level...

The 2020 CARES Act directed large cash payments to households. We analyze house-holds' spending responses using high-frequency transaction data from a Fintech non-profit, exploring heterogeneity by income levels, recent income declines, and liquidity as well as linked survey responses about...

We examine how policymakers should react to a pandemic when there is significant uncertainty regarding key parameters relating to the disease. In particular, this paper explores how optimal mitigation policies change when incorporating uncertainty regarding the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) and the...