This study uses a boundary design and propensity score methods to the effects of 1930s-era Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) “redlining” maps on long-run trajectories urban neighborhoods. The led reduced home ownership rates, house values, rents increased racial segregation in later decades. A comparison either side city-level population cutoff that determined whether were drawn finds broadly...

This paper studies how the impact of monetary policy depends on distribution savings from refinancing mortgages. We show that efficacy is state dependent, varying in a systematic way with pool potential refinancing. construct quantitative dynamic life-cycle model accounts for our findings and use it to study response consumption change mortgage rates These effects are strongly dependent. also l...

Borrower-based macroprudential (MP) policies - such as caps on loan-to-value (LTV) ratios and debt-service-to-income (DSTI) limits contain the build-up of systemic risk by reducing probability conditional impact a crisis. While LTV/DSTI can increase inequality at introduction, they dampen in under adverse macroeconomic conditions. The relative size these opposing effects is an empirical questio...

Abstract This paper examines racial disparities in mortgage processing time prior to the global financial crisis. We find that Black borrowers are underrepresented and experience a longer than white among mortgages securitized by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). At same time, borrower overrepresented face similar privately (PLS) mortgages. Additionally, strongly associated with faster s...

Measuring the sensitivity of housing demand to mortgage rates and available leverage is challenging because there generally no exogenous variation in these variables. This paper circumvents this issue by designing a strategic survey which respondents report their willingness pay (WTP) for home under different financing scenarios. Relaxation down payment constraints or an increase nonhousing wea...

This paper attempts to provide a critical appraisal of the debate on the effectiveness of microfinance as a universal poverty reduction tool. It argues that while microfinance has developed some innovative management and business strategies, its impact on poverty reduction remains in doubt. Microfinance, however, certainly plays an important role in providing safety-net and consumption smoothen...

I evaluate a bank’s incentives to implement a risk sensitive regulatory capital rule. The decision making is analyzed within a real options framework where optimal policies are derived in terms of threshold levels of risk. The bank’s customers, lenders, and other outsiders may influence the optimal decision. Outsiders may make it optimal for the bank to implement the risk sensitive rule earlier...