The period 2004-2005 showed a significant increase in Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rate spread reporting. Following the Oaxaca (1973), Blinder (1973), and Fairlie (2005) decomposition techniques, this study identifies the fraction of the increase due to the flattening of the yield curve....

Our study focuses on whether mortgage prices for Hispanic borrowers in areas of limited English fluency depend on the broker's ethnicity. While we find that Hispanic borrowers in areas where the majority of Hispanics are not fluent in English pay higher prices overall, mortgage prices are lower...

This paper exploits the dramatic increase in house prices in early 2000 and the panel nature of the data to investigate the effect of home equity on charitable giving. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 2001 to 2007, we find that a 10% increase in home equity increases a household’s...