Governments utilize home ownership schemes for the dual purpose of alleviating housing affordability and stimulating housing construction. This paper studies how the housing market responds to assistance policies by exploiting a natural experiment in Sydney, Australia, where buyers of new homes...

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented crisis in the tourism industry. We study the impact of COVID-19 on global Airbnb booking activity regarding three factors: the initial Wuhan lockdown, local COVID-19 cases, and local lockdowns. Using reviews and cancellations as proxies for...

We use a linked housing transaction dataset and a personal bankruptcy dataset to study the impact of housing credit on personal bankruptcy in Singapore. Using a difference-in-differences (DD) approach, we find that an increase in housing credit increases the monthly instalment by 560-900...

We study the distribution of savings from mortgage refinancing across income groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between February and June 2020, the difference in savings from refinancing between high- and low-income borrowers was 10 times higher than before. This was the result of two factors:...

We evaluate the effects of the 2009 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) that provided intermediaries with sizeable financial incentives to renegotiate mortgages. HAMP increased intensity of renegotiations and prevented substantial number of foreclosures but reached just one-third of its...

We explore the effects of mandatory third-party review of mortgage contracts on consumer choice--including the terms and demand for mortgage credit. Our study is based on a legislative pilot carried out by the State of Illinois in a selected set of zip codes in 2006. Mortgage applicants with low...