The papers in this special issue of the Annals were first presented at the Transportation and Economic Development Conference held in Little Rock, Arkansas in March of 2006. The conference was attended by officials from U.S. Department of Transportation agencies, academic scholars and industry...

In this paper we examine the incentives for lenders to steer borrowers into piggyback loan structures to circumvent regulations requiring primary mortgage insurance (PMI) for loans with loan to value ratios (LTV) above 80%. Our empirical analysis focuses on propensity score matched portfolios of...

We document the effect of policy-induced credit supply on fueling asset prices that lead to financial crises and broad economic outcomes. By comparing loans that fall under the current conforming loan limit (CLL) to those under the old limit last year in a difference-in-differences setting, we...

This paper documents that mortgage servicers increased modification rates by approximately 8 percent for delinquent loans located in a district whose representative was a member of the Financial Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 111th Congress. We document that...

During the housing bust many homeowners found themselves “underwater�—the amount they owed on their mortgages exceeded the value of the associated property—and they either could not or possibly chose not to stay current on their mortgage payments. As a consequence,...

This paper studies how demand for labor reacts to financial technology (fintech) shocks based on comprehensive databases of fintech patents and firm job postings in the U.S. during the past decade. We first develop a measure of fintech exposure at the occupation level by intersecting the textual...

Amendments to the Fair Lending Act have exempted an age restriction on ownership from fair housing prohibitions. This paper studies the economic impact of such ownership restriction on housing values. Using American Housing Survey data, we find that there is a significant premium attached to the...

With the increasing importance of the service-providing sectors, information from these sectors has become essential to the understanding of contemporary business cycles. This paper explores the usefulness of the transportation services output index (TSI) as an additional coincident indicator in...