Search Results
Working Paper
Is there discrimination in mortgage pricing? the case of overages
We conduct an empirical investigation to explain observed differentials in mortgage overage pricing. Our analysis makes several contributions. First, we study an area of mortgage pricing that is little understood by consumers and has received little scrutiny in the literature. Second, we consider the impact of the market power of individual loan officers on overages paid by borrowers, particularly minorities. Third, we include a number of borrower and lender characteristics not available in previous analysis. ; Importantly, we introduce a new direct measure of the market power of individual ...
Working Paper
A discrete choice model of dividend reinvestment plans: classification and prediction
We study 852 companies with dividend reinvestment plans in 1999 matched by total assets to 852 companies without such plans. We use discrete choice methods to predict the classification of these companies. We interpret the misclassified companies as being likely to switch their plan status. That is, if a firm's financial data suggest that a company should have had a dividend reinvestment plan in 1999 but did not, then we expect that it would be more likely to institute a plan than the other companies in the sample. Conversely, if it did have a plan but the financial data suggest that it ...
Working Paper
Capital forbearance and thrifts: an ex post examination of regulatory gambling
This paper estimates the losses embedded in the capital positions of the 996 FSLIC-insured savings and loan institutions that did not meet capital standards at the end of the 1970s. We compare the estimated cost of resolving the insolvencies of these institutions at the end of the 1970s with the actual failure-resolution costs for those that were closed by July 3 1, 1992, and the projected resolution costs for the remaining thrifts that are likely to be closed. Our results show that even when one considers only the direct costs associated with delayed closure of economically failed thrifts, ...
Journal Article
Financial market frictions
Market frictions, which exist even in efficient markets and change over time, impede trade but also offer profit opportunities. To provide a framework for understanding market frictions, the authors classify frictions into five categories.
Working Paper
Regime changes in stock returns
The authors model stock returns as a stochastic function of a constant expected return and the financing costs resulting from delayed delivery, to examine three potential sources of instability in stock-return model parameter estimates.
Working Paper
Understanding 401(k) plans
Questions about the future of the Social Security system continue to surface. As a result, interest in employer-sponsored retirement plans and other retirement investment options increases. But the restrictions and rules associated with various defined benefit plans such as 401(k), 403 (b), and 457 plans can be confusing, and these plans have risks of their own. The authors explore these plans and explain the need to view retirement savings as only one part of a portfolio.
Working Paper
Anticipating bailouts: the incentive-conflict model and the collapse of the Ohio Deposit Guarantee Fund
An examination of the effect of the collapse of the Ohio Deposit Guarantee Fund on insured financial institutions in the context of the incentive-conflict model developed by Edward Kane, finding that differences in abnormal returns of FDIC and FSLIC firms tend to reaffirm that taxpayer-funded bailouts are a natural outgrowth of the moral-hazard problem that taxpayers face.
Working Paper
Asset allocation and section 529 plans
Previous research has concluded that prespecified asset allocations used by many Section 529 college savings plans are suboptimal. We extend this research to show that though it may be true, it is true for reasons other than those asserted in previous research. In addition, it tends to deflect attention from other investment options and strategies.
Working Paper
Variability and stationarity of term premia
Journal Article
Standardizing world securities clearance systems
A discussion of how the dramatic increase in the volume of international securities trading has strained the present system of settling trades. Included are nine recommendations made by the Group of Thirty to reduce the risk and cost of trading in financial markets worldwide and the difficulties that would accompany implementation of a new system.