Refinancing a first mortgage puts legal principles in conflict when other, junior, liens also exist. On one hand, the principle that seniority follows time priority leaves the new refinancing mortgage junior to mortgages that were junior to the original, refinanced first mortgage. On the other...

Residential house price indexes (HPI) are used for a large variety of macroeconomic and microeconomic research and policy purposes, as well as for automated valuation models. As is well known, these indexes are subject to substantial revisions in the months following the initial release, both...

We find that private-securitized loans perform worse than observably similar, nonsecuritized loans, which provides evidence for adverse selection. The effect of securitization is strongest for prime mortgages, which have not been studied widely in the previous literature and particular prime...

This paper supersedes Working Paper No. 12-8. We study trade between an informed seller and an uninformed buyer who have existing inventories of assets similar to those being traded. We show that these inventories may lead to prices that increase even absent changes in fundamentals (a .run-up.),...

This paper is superseded by Working Paper No. 13-14. We study trade between a buyer and a seller who have existing inventories of assets similar to those being traded. We analyze how these inventories affect trade, information dissemination, and prices. We show that when traders’ initial...

The authors study trade between a buyer and a seller when both may have existing inventories of assets similar to those being traded. They analyze how these inventories affect trade, information dissemination, and price formation. The authors show that when the buyer's and seller's initial...

Regulators express growing concern over predatory loans, which we take to mean loans that borrowers should decline. Using a model of consumer credit in which such lending is possible, we identify the circumstances in which it arises both with and without competition. We find that predatory...

Regulators express growing concern over quot;predatory lending,quot; which we taketo mean lending that extracts excessive rent from borrowers. We present a rational model of consumer credit in which such lending is possible, and we identify the circumstances in which it arises with and without...