This paper studies a largely overlooked and important segment of the mortgage market in explaining the recent financial crisis — the condominium loan market, which experienced a 15-fold increase in origination and constituted 15% of the overall residential loan originations from 2001 to 2007....

Using a representative sample of credit card holders from a Chinese commercial bank with a 10% credit card market share, we investigate how consumers respond to an unexpected interest rate decrease that automatically reduces interest expenses for all mortgagors in the country and thereby...

We propose a novel supply-side channel for the transmission of macroprudential policy. We exploit a unique policy experiment that tightens collateral requirements differentially across mortgage contract types, and document a composition change towards borrowers that have higher debt-to-income...

Using several large data sets of mortgage loans originated between 2004 and 2007, we find that in the prime mortgage market, banks generally sold low-default-risk loans into the secondary market while retaining higher-default-risk loans in their portfolios. In contrast, these lenders retained...

The authors examine whether a borrower's choice of automobile reveals information about future loan performance. They find that loans on most luxury automobiles have a higher probability of prepayment, while loans on most economy automobiles have a lower probability of default, even when holding...

We derive the first closed-form optimal refinancing rule for mortgages: Refinance when the current mortgage interest rate falls below the original mortgage interest rate by at least (1/ψ)[φ W(-exp(-φ))], where W(.) is the principal branch of the Lambert W-function, ψ=((√(2(ρ λ)))/σ),...

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...