It is commonly agreed that excessive household financial debts are detrimental to psychological and physical health. Research also demonstrates that housing instability, mortgage indebtedness and mortgage foreclosure negatively influence subjective well-being. In Poland at the beginning of 2015, homeowners with Swiss franc denominated mortgages suffered from an abrupt swing in the Swiss franc/P...

*The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve bank of Philadelphia or the Federal Reserve System. 1 The economic Recovery Act of 2008, which was enacted on July 30, 2008, established the Federal housing Finance Agency (FhFA) by combining the Office of Federal housing enterprise Oversight (OFheO) and the Federal housing Financ...

The publication of the ‘Fed Boston Study’ drew considerable attention to the long-standing issue of discrimination of minorities in mortgage lending. Federal regulators have since stepped up their efforts to enforce greater compliance of banks with various fair-lending laws. Stengel & Glennon (1999), in their influential paper, offered the industry a statistical methodology that individual bank...

We use survey data to study American households’ propensity to default when the value of their mortgage exceeds the value of their house even if they can afford to pay their mortgage (strategic default). The cost of defaulting strategically increases in wealth, but at a decreasing rate. It is driven both by pecuniary and non pecuniary factors, such as views about fairness and morality. Exposure...

The real estate sector is responsible for a significant greenhouse gas externality, which has prompted interest from policy makers, as well as the emergence of voluntary disclosure standards. As opposed to general concerns about the potentially negative impact of “sustainability” programs and initiatives on corporate financial performance, energy efficiency measures may lead to significant retu...

Over the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the phenomenon known as ”predatory lending.” In a forthcoming paper, we argue that predatory lending emerged when market incentives that historically led lenders to engage in credit rationing gave way to a market where lenders could easily exploit unsophisticated borrowers. Our specific focus is on the home loan market, i.e., closed...

Much prior literature on asset patterns among the elderly has mostly overlooked housing wealth as a determinant of retiree wealth, particularly in the Japanese context. Yet releasing equity in housing may be a natural mechanism to boost consumption, reduce public pension liability, and mitigate the demand for long-term care facilities in Japan. Our study evaluates what might be needed to implem...

This article analyzes the dynamics of the commonly used indices for Adjustable Rate Mortgages, and systematically compares the effects of their time series properties on the interest rate sensitivity of adjustable rate mortgages. Our ARM valuation methodology allows us simultaneously to capture the effects of index dynamics, discrete coupon adjustment, mortgage prepayment, and both lifetime and...

This paper examines how filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 helps financially distressed debtors save their homes. We develop a model of debtors’ decisions to default on their mortgages and file for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 and evaluate the model using new data on Chapter 13 bankruptcy filers. We also examine the effect of introducing “cram-down” of residential mortgages in Chapter 13. We...

OBJECTIVE To examine whether financial fraud is associated with poor health sleeping problems and poor quality of life. METHODS Pilot study (n=188) conducted in 2015-2016 in Madrid and León (Spain) by recruiting subjects affected by two types of fraud (preferred shares and foreign currency mortgages) using venue-based sampling. Information on the monetary value of each case of fraud; the date...