Findings

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Kevin Lewis

March 26, 2018

The Fed, the Bond Market, and Gradualism in Monetary Policy
Jeremy Stein & Adi Sunderam
Journal of Finance, forthcoming

Abstract:

We develop a model of monetary policy with two key features: the central bank has private information about its long-run target rate and is averse to bond market volatility. In this setting, the central bank gradually impounds changes in its target into the policy rate. Such gradualism represents an attempt to not spook the bond market. However, this effort is partially undone in equilibrium, as markets rationally react more to a given move when the central bank moves more gradually. This time-consistency problem means that society would be better off if the central bank cared less about the bond market.


The Effect of Debt Collection Laws on Access to Credit
Ryan Sandler & Charles Romeo
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Working Paper, February 2018

Abstract:

Debt collection by third party collection agencies is an important part of the market for consumer credit, but has been little studied in the economics literature. Regulations on debt collection practices can protect consumers, but may also lead to unintended consequences as the costs of better practices are passed on to creditors, who in turn restrict consumers' access to credit or raise prices. Using detailed administrative data on new credit card accounts, this paper studies the effects of four recent state laws and regulations that placed restrictions on the conduct of debt collectors. We find that such restrictions reduce access to credit card accounts and raise prices for credit cards, but that this effect is very small of a similar magnitude to a minor change in the average consumers' credit score.


Housing Price Booms and Crowding-Out Effects in Bank Lending
Indraneel Chakraborty, Itay Goldstein & Andrew MacKinlay
Review of Financial Studies, forthcoming

Abstract:

Analyzing the period 1988-2006, we document that banks that are active in strong housing markets increase mortgage lending and decrease commercial lending. Firms that borrow from these banks have significantly lower investment. This is especially pronounced for firms that are more capital constrained or borrow from more-constrained banks. Various extensions and robustness analyses are consistent with the interpretation that commercial loans were crowded out by banks responding to profitable opportunities in mortgage lending, rather than with a demand-based interpretation. The results suggest that housing prices appreciations have negative spillovers to the real economy, which were overlooked thus far.


The effect of mortgage securitization on foreclosure and modification
Samuel Kruger
Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming

Abstract:

Did securitization exacerbate the foreclosure crisis by altering mortgage servicing practices? I exploit the unanticipated freeze of private mortgage securitization in 2007 to provide new evidence that securitization increases foreclosure probability and decreases modification probability. These effects are economically large and persist over time even after implementation of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) in 2009. Using hand-collected data on the contractual terms of servicing agreements, I show that servicers typically have broad discretion to modify loans but face significant incentives favoring foreclosure. The evidence implies that securitization significantly increased foreclosure rates during and after the crisis.


Socioeconomic and racial disparities in the financial returns to homeownership
Tom Mayock & Rachel Spritzer Malacrida
Regional Science and Urban Economics, May 2018, Pages 80-96

Abstract:

In this study we utilize data from over a million ownership spells between 1990 and 2013 in 9 metropolitan areas - Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and San Francisco - to provide what we believe to be the most extensive analysis of the variation in the financial returns to homeownership along racial and socioeconomic dimensions. Holding constant a buyer's purchase price, property type, neighborhood, and purchase and sale timing, we find that capital gains have been systematically lower for low-income and minority home buyers in every market in our sample. In some cases, the unconditional returns realized by these buyers were higher, a phenomenon driven by their higher propensity to purchase lower-priced homes that experienced high levels of appreciation. Taken as whole, our findings call into question the widespread claim that encouraging homeownership for low-income and minority households is a panacea for addressing wealth inequality.


I Promise To Pay
Joshua Mitts
Columbia University Working Paper, February 2018

Abstract:

Consumers are more likely to keep a promise they make themselves. When a scheduling conflict prevents a borrower from attending a mortgage closing, a Power of Attorney (POA) empowers a third party to sign the documents promising that the borrower will repay the loan. POAs arise after loan terms are locked in, making POA and non-POA loans virtually indistinguishable. Comparing within-borrower and within-property, I link POAs to greater delinquency and foreclosure. Loan performance data show that POAs are uncorrelated with cash flow shocks but reflect reduced promise-keeping conditional on financial distress. Consistent with prior work on salience and personal responsibility, promise-keeping is higher for loans serviced by the originating lender. Financial intermediation may play an important role in consumer lending.


Asset Quality Cycles
Masao Fukui
Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming

Abstract:

Systemic risk builds up during booms in an economy featuring asymmetric information in asset markets, where investors' hidden effort choices endogenously determine asset quality distribution. Higher asset prices during booms induce more investors to sell their assets, which lowers their incentive to improve quality. This quality deterioration in turn makes the economy vulnerable to future exogenous shocks because market breakdowns become more likely. Private agents do not internalize that their effort choices worsen future adverse selection problems, and thus the planner may improve welfare by taxing trade and thereby lowering asset prices.


Mortgage Supply and Housing Rents
Pedro Gete & Michael Reher
Review of Financial Studies, forthcoming

Abstract:

We show that a contraction of mortgage supply after the Great Recession has increased housing rents. Our empirical strategy exploits heterogeneity in MSAs' exposure to regulatory shocks experienced by lenders over the 2010-2014 period. Tighter lending standards have increased demand for rental housing, leading to higher rents, depressed homeownership rates and an increase in rental supply. Absent the credit supply contraction, annual rent growth would have been 2.1 percentage points lower over 2010-2014 in MSAs in which lending standards rose from their 2008 levels.


What's Manhattan worth? A land values index from 1950 to 2014
Jason Barr, Fred Smith & Sayali Kulkarni
Regional Science and Urban Economics, May 2018, Pages 1-19

Abstract:

Using vacant land sales, we construct a land values index for Manhattan from 1950 to 2014. We find three major cycles (1950-1977, 1977 to 1993, and 1993 to 2009) with land values reaching their nadir in 1977, just after the city's fiscal crisis. Overall, we find the average annual real growth rate to be 5.5%. Since 1993, land prices have risen quite dramatically, and much faster than population or employment growth, at an average annual rate of 15.8%, suggesting that barriers to entry in real estate development are causing prices to rise faster than other measures of local well-being. Further, we estimate the entire amount of developable land on Manhattan in 2014 was worth approximately $1.74 trillion. This would suggest an average annual return of about 6.4% since the island was first inhabited by Dutch settlers in 1626.


Urban heritages: How history and housing finance matter to housing form and homeownership rates
Timothy Blackwell & Sebastian Kohl
Urban Studies, forthcoming

Abstract:

Contemporary Western cities are not uniform, but display a variety of different housing forms and tenures, both between and within countries. We distinguish three general city types in this paper: low-rise, single-family dwelling cities where owner-occupation is the most prevalent tenure form; multi-dwelling building cities where tenants comprise the majority; and multi-dwelling building cities where owner-occupation is the principal tenure form. We argue that historical developments beginning in the 19th century are crucial to understanding this diversity in urban form and tenure composition across Western cities. Our path-dependent argument is twofold. First, we claim that different housing finance institutions engendered different forms of urban development during the late 19th century and had helped to establish the difference between single-family dwelling cities and multi-dwelling building cities by 1914. Second, rather than stemming from countries' welfare systems or 'variety of capitalism', we argue that these historical distinctions have a significant and enduring impact on today's urban housing forms and tenures. Our argument is supported by a unique collection of data of 1095 historical cities across 27 countries.


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