Using loan-level mortgage data merged with consumer credit records, we examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). The policy relaxed housing equity constraints by extending...

Using proprietary loan-level data, we examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP). The policy relaxed housing equity constraints by extending government credit guarantee on...

We provide novel evidence that peer induced saliency bias acts as a mechanism to explain consumption peer effects. This bias occurs when consumers overweight the influence of a single, salient peer when assessing brand quality, and underweight more objective, aggregate quality data. We exploit...

Using loan-level mortgage data merged with consumer credit records, we examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). The policy relaxed housing equity constraints by extending...

To incentivize households to increase private savings, the Indian government implemented in July 2014 a new tax-subsidized saving policy that largely incentivizes homeowners by allowing them to exempt an additional 50,000 INR ($833) of the mortgage principal and interest payments from taxable...

We use detailed micro data to document a causal response of local retail prices to changes in local house prices, with elasticities of 15%-20% across housing booms and busts. Notably, these price responses are largest in zip codes with many homeowners, and non-existent in zip codes with mostly...