We use a new methodology to assess mortgage pricing discrimination by race. We make four main contributions. First, we show that existing estimates of mortgage pricing differences by race can be confounded by a "menu problem," which is the problem associated with evaluating equality in...

Cooperative banks are widely seen as sustainable alternatives to profit-driven banking. However, while most banks struggle to meet the stringent capital requirements of regulators, cooperative banks are in particular need of cautious capital-related decisions given their little ability to...

Deregulation and progress in information and communication technologies have increased the geographical expansion of banking structures and instruments. This makes banks operationally close to the borrowers. At the same time, banking industry consolidation have induced a geographical...

This paper analyzes the relationship between changes in borrowers' monthly mortgage payments and future credit performance. This relationship is important for the design of an internal refinance program such as the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). We use a competing risk model to...

After rising for a decade, the U.S. homeownership rate peaked at 69 percent in the third quarter of 2006. Over the next two and a half years, as home prices fell in many parts of the country and the unemployment rate rose sharply, the homeownership rate declined by 1.7 percentage points. An...

Bisherige Studien haben den digitalen Zugang zu Finanzdienstleistungen untersucht und gut versorgte sowie unterversorgte Regionen in Deutschland identifiziert. Das Vorhandensein eines hinreichend guten digitalen Zugangs sagt aber nichts darüber aus, ob dieser auch genutzt wird, um damit...

Infolge der Finanzkrise hatten britische Unternehmen deutlich häufiger Probleme Kredite zu erhalten als deutsche. Die Studie zeigt, dass ein Grund hierfür im deutschen Regionalbankensystem und seinen spezifischen Eigenschaften liegen könnte. Durch die Nähe zum Unternehmer besteht die...

By lending to SMEs at low geographical distance, banks can realise competitive advantage due to enhanced access to soft information that allows the better screening of firms. As especially regional banks lend at a low distance, the decentralised German banking system is deemed ideal for SME...

We study how information sharing between banks influences the geographical clustering of branches. A spatial oligopoly model first explains why branches cluster and how information sharing impacts price competition and equilibrium clustering. With data on 59,333 branches of 676 banks in 22...

We use data from credit reports and deed records to better understand the extent to which second liens contributed to the housing crisis by allowing buyers to purchase homes with small down-payments. At the top of the housing market, second liens were quite prevalent: As many as 45 percent of...