Consumer Finance
Our Consumer Finance Institute researches how people earn, spend, save, and invest, as well as how credit markets and payment systems affect the economy. Our goal is to foster a healthy consumer sector, a stable financial system, and a resilient regional and national economy.
Working Paper
Not Cashing In on Cashing Out: An Analysis of Low Cash-Out Refinance Rates
WP 26-01 – More than half of borrowers who have both home equity and high-interest loans fail to reduce their overall debt burden by folding this high-interest debt into a lower-interest mortgage when they undertake a mortgage refinance.
Working Paper
Property Tax Pass-Through to Renters: A Quasi-Experimental Approach
WP 25-41 – Does a landlord’s property tax bill affect a new tenant’s rent? According to standard economic theory, it should not — the law of one price implies that identical rental units in the same market should be priced identically, despite heterogeneity in property tax costs.
Report
Student Loans for Graduate School: Who Will Be Affected by the New Federal Lending Limits?
This report brings novel evidence on the potential effects of newly enacted reductions in federal borrowing limits for graduate education.
Working Paper
What Is My Home Worth?
WP 25-40 – Economic models often assume that agents always know the market value of their assets. We use residential property tax assessment as a laboratory to test this assumption for housing. We first show that assessed market value (AMV) is a noisy proxy for transaction-based market value (TMV).
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Lender File
31 Jul ’25
The HMDA Lender File includes characteristics of firms receiving mortgage applications and originating loans. The data set enables users to connect HMDA filers to their parent organizations and compare a filer’s lending over time.
Working Paper
Gender Differences in Credit Card Limits: Evidence from Sole Mortgage Applicants
WP 23-30/R – Using linked mortgage application and credit bureau data, we document the existence of unconditional and conditional gender gaps in the distribution of total credit card limits for sole mortgage applicants