Detecting and measuring discrimination in the pricing of mortgage loans present unique challenges for bank regulators. This Commentary outlines how loans are priced in the mortgage market and the difficulties involved in comparing the prices charged to different borrowers.

A demonstration that violations of the absolute priority rule exacerbate credit rationing problems by reducing the payment lenders receive in default states.

The author argues that runs, which are generally considered undesirable, also have a beneficial effect--improving lenders' monitoring incentives. Lenders' ability to run on the firm helps control its moral hazard problem, while the first-come, first-served aspect of asset distribution keeps...

An analysis showing that allowing creditors to "run" on a firm in financial distress is socially valuable, since it compensates them for monitoring the firm's condition; in contrast, strict adherence to absolute and proportionate priority rules allows lenders to free ride on the monitoring...

An argument that informational asymmetries explain why the original shareholders of some firms emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings with stock in the reorganized company, while others receive warrants. By proposing a reorganization plan in which they receive warrants, the original...

In this paper, we consider the role of statistical analysis in fair-lending compliance examinations. We present a case study of an actual fair-lending examination of a large mortgage lender, demonstrating how statistical techniques can be a valuable tool in focusing examiner efforts to either...

Revised. In this article we provide a rationale for bankruptcy law that is based on the conflicts among creditors that occur when a debtor’s liabilities exceed its assets. In the absence of a bankruptcy law, the private debt-collection remedies that creditors pursue when a debtor is insolvent...

The authors examine two aspects of a bank's interaction with its borrowers--the relative priority of bank debt and the role of banks as "relationship lenders." They show that making the bank senior improves its incentives to build a relationship with the firm, thereby fulfilling an important...

An argument that racial discrimination in the home mortgage market arises not only from bigotry, but from statistical discrimination (wherein race is correlated with some hard-to-measure determinants of creditworthiness) and from a lack of cultural affinity between lenders and minorities. The...