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Working Paper
Housing, consumption, and credit constraints
I test the credit-market effects of housing wealth shocks by estimating the consumption elasticity of house price shocks among households in different age quintiles. Younger households face faster expected income growth and hence would like to borrow more than older households. I estimate consumption elasticities from housing wealth by age quintile to be {4; 0; 3; 8; 3} percent. As predicted by theory, the youngest group has a higher elasticity of consumption than the next two age quintiles. That the consumption of the age quintile on the verge of retirement is responsive to housing wealth is ...
Working Paper
Financial Vulnerabilities, Macroeconomic Dynamics, and Monetary Policy
We define a measure to be a financial vulnerability if, in a VAR framework that allows for nonlinearities, an impulse to the measure leads to an economic contraction. We evaluate alternative macrofinancial imbalances as vulnerabilities: nonfinancial sector credit, risk appetite of financial market participants, and the leverage and short-term funding of financial firms. We find that nonfinancial credit is a vulnerability: impulses to the credit-to-GDP gap when it is high leads to a recession. Risk appetite leads to an economic expansion in the near-term, but also higher credit and a recession ...
Working Paper
The banking industry and the safety net subsidy
Governments use monetary policies to counteract the effects of financial crises. In this paper we examine the subsidy that such "safety net" policies provide to the banking industry. Using a model of uncertainty-driven financial crises, we show that any monetary policy designed to maintain risky investment in the face of investor uncertainty (and thus promote economic growth and stability) will subsidize the banking industry. In addition, we show that the mere presence of a monetary authority willing to support a failing banking system in bad times subsidizes the banking industry, even if ...
Working Paper
Consumption, debt and portfolio choice: testing the effect of bankruptcy law
Consumer bankruptcy laws, which vary across states and over time, permit debtors to keep assets below a statutory exemption while debts are forgiven. High exemptions distort household portfolio decisions and tempt households to default on debts, but they also provide a crude form of consumption insurance. We combine information on state-level bankruptcy laws with the Consumer Expenditure Survey from 1984-1999. We find that higher exemptions are associated with (1) higher bankruptcy rates, (2) households that are more likely to simultaneously hold low-return liquid assets and owe high-cost ...
Discussion Paper
Making sense of the subprime crisis
This paper explores the question of whether market participants could have or should have anticipated the large increase in foreclosures that occurred in 2007 and 2008. Most of these foreclosures stem from loans originated in 2005 and 2006, leading many to suspect that lenders originated a large volume of extremely risky loans during this period. However, the authors show that while loans originated in this period did carry extra risk factors, particularly increased leverage, underwriting standards alone cannot explain the dramatic rise in foreclosures. Focusing on the role of house prices, ...
Working Paper
The history of cyclical macroprudential policy in the United States
Since the financial crisis of 2007-2009, policymakers have debated the need for a new toolkit of cyclical "macroprudential" policies to constrain the build-up of risks in financial markets, for example, by dampening credit-fueled asset bubbles. These discussions tend to ignore America's long and varied history with many of the instruments under consideration to smooth the credit cycle, presumably because of their sparse usage in the last three decades. We provide the first comprehensive survey and historic narrative of these efforts. The tools whose background and use we describe include ...
Working Paper
GSEs, mortgage rates, and secondary market activities
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that purchase mortgages and issue mortgage-backed securities (MBS). In addition, the GSEs are active participants in the primary and secondary mortgage markets on behalf of their own portfolios of MBS. Because these portfolios have grown quite large, portfolio purchases as well as MBS issuance are likely to be important forces in the mortgage market. This paper examines the statistical evidence of a connection between GSE actions and the interest rates paid by mortgage borrowers. We find that both portfolio purchases and ...
Working Paper
Asset pooling, credit rationing, and growth
I study the effect of improved financial intermediation on the process of capital accumulation by augmenting a standard model with a general contract space. With the extra contracts, intermediaries endogenously begin using ROSCAs, or Rotating Savings and Credit Associations. These contracts allow poor agents, previously credit rationed, access to credit. As a result, agents work harder and total economy-wide output increases; however, these gains come at the cost of increased inequality. I provide sufficient conditions for the allocations to be Pareto optimal, and for there to be a unique ...
Working Paper
Designing loan modifications to address the mortgage crisis and the making home affordable program
Delinquencies on residential mortgages and home foreclosures have risen dramatically in the past couple of years. The mortgage losses triggered a broad-based financial crisis and severe recession, which, in turn, exacerbated the initial financial distress faced by homeowners. Although servicers increased their loss mitigation efforts as defaults began to mount, foreclosures continued to occur in cases where both the borrower and investor would be better off if such an outcome were avoided. The U.S. government has engaged in a number of initiatives to reduce such foreclosures. This paper ...