Law Commons^™

Preferences For Banking And Payment Services Among Low- And Moderate-Income Households, Michael S. Barr, Jane Dokko, Eleanor Feit

Law & Economics Working Papers

This paper characterizes the features of an account-based payment card – including bank debit cards, prepaid debit cards, and payroll cards – that elicit a high take-rate among low- and moderate-income (LMI) households, particularly those without bank accounts. We apply marketing research techniques, specifically choice modeling, to identify the design of a specific financial services product for LMI households, who often face difficulties maintaining standard bank accounts but need banking services. After monthly cost, we find that, on average, non-monetary features of a payment card, such as the availability of federal protection and the type of card, are factors LMI …

False Security: How Securitization Failed To Protect Arrangers And Investors From Borrower Claims, Kathleen C. Engel, Thomans J. Fitzpatrick

kathleen c engel

False Security: How Securitization Failed to Protect Arrangers and Investors from Borrower Claims

by Kathleen C. Engel and Thomas J. Fitzpatrick IV

The future of housing finance is in a state of flux. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest loan arrangers in the United States, are in conservatorship. Private sector securitization of mortgages has almost completely stopped. As a result, Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie Mae now own or guarantee almost all new residential mortgage loans. In February 2011, the Obama Administration released a proposal outlining three plans for the future of housing finance. In all three plans, Freddie …

Barriers To Market Discipline: A Comparative Study Of Mortgage Market Regulation, Vincent Di Lorenzo

Vincent Di Lorenzo

This paper explores mortgage market reforms in the U.S. and U.K. in response to the recent mortgage market crisis. Two issues are examined. First, the paper explores the extent to which regulatory bodies have recognized behavioral barriers to market discipline on the part of not only consumers but also industry actors. Second the paper examines the varied response in the U.S. and U.K. to both market limitations and behavioral limitations to self-protection and self-discipline that led to unsafe lending practices in the period 2003 through 2007. The greater emphasis on rules-based regulation in the U.S. after 2008 is compared with …

The Subprime Virus: Reckless Credit, Regulatory Failure, And Next Steps

Patricia A. McCoy

In this lively new book, Kathleen C. Engel and Patricia A. McCoy tell the full story behind the subprime crisis. The authors, experts in the law and economics of financial regulation and consumer lending, offer a sharply reasoned, but accessible account of the actions that produced the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.