Search Results

SORT BY: PREVIOUS / NEXT
Jel Classification:G51 

Discussion Paper
Credit Score Impacts from Past Due Student Loan Payments

In our companion post, we highlighted how the pandemic and subsequent policy actions disrupted trends in the growth of student loan balances, the pace of repayment, and the classification of delinquent loans. In this post, we discuss how these changes affected the credit scores of student loan borrowers and how the return of negative reporting of past due balances will impact the credit standing of student loan borrowers. We estimate that more than nine million student loan borrowers will face significant drops in credit score once delinquencies appear on credit reports in the first half of ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20250326b

Working Paper
A Macroeconomic Model of Central Bank Digital Currency

We develop a quantitative New Keynesian DSGE model with monopolistic banks to study the macroeconomic effects of introducing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Households benefit from an expansion of liquidity services and higher deposit rates as bank deposit market power is curtailed, while bank profitability and lending decline. We assess this trade-off for a wide range of economies that differ in their level of interest rates. We find substantial welfare gains from introducing a CBDC with an optimal rate that can be approximated by a simple rule of thumb: the maximum between 0% and ...
Working Paper Series , Paper 2024-11

Working Paper
Navigating Higher Education Insurance: An Experimental Study on Demand and Adverse Selection

We conduct a survey-based experiment with 2,776 students at a non-profit university to analyze income insurance demand in education financing. We offered students a hypothetical choice: either a federal loan with income-driven repayment or an income-share agreement (ISA), with randomized framingof downside protections. Emphasizing income insurance increased ISA uptake by 43%. We observe that students are responsive to changes in contract terms and possible student loan cancellation, which is evidence of preference adjustment or adverse selection. Our results indicate that framing specific ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2024-024

Working Paper
Earnings Misperceptions and Household Distress

Households learn whether income changes are temporary or persistent from their own paychecks. This paper develops a quantitative model of financial distress that incorporates this inference and estimates the extent to which households overweight recent outcomes—diagnostic expectations—using survey data on income beliefs. The model explains distress without assuming extreme impatience and aligns with the observed relationship between income and interest rates. Learning and diagnostic expectations account for about half of delinquencies and one-third of bankruptcies. Diagnostic expectations ...
Working Papers , Paper 2025-030

Working Paper
Missouri’s Medicaid Contraction and Consumer Financial Outcomes

In July 2005, a set of cuts to Medicaid eligibility and coverage went into effect in the state of Missouri. These cuts resulted in the elimination of the Medical Assistance for Workers with Disabilities program, more stringent eligibility requirements, and less generous Medicaid coverage for those who retained their eligibility. Overall, these cuts removed about 100,000 Missourians from the program and reduced the value of the insurance for the remaining enrollees. Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we show how these cuts increased out-of-pocket medical spending for ...
Working Papers , Paper 20-42

Journal Article
Aging, Deflation, and Secular Stagnation

Prior to the COVID pandemic, industrialized countries experienced a sustained episode of low inflation, low real interest rates, and low per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth. As the logistical and other disruptions created by the COVID pandemic fade, will industrialized economies once again face downward pressure on prices, real interest rates, and output growth? We present evidence that the aging of the population was depressing the inflation rate, as well as real interest rates and GDP growth, prior to the COVID pandemic. Aging is ongoing in industrialized countries, and it will ...
Policy Hub , Volume 2022 , Issue 13

Journal Article
Racial Differences in Mortgage Refinancing, Distress, and Housing Wealth Accumulation during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic was characterized by both high refinancing volumes and high rates of mortgage nonpayment. Refinancing activity differed significantly across racial and ethnic groups, and we show that the benefits from the lower interest rate environment were not shared equally. Compared to white borrowers, Black and Hispanic mortgage borrowers experienced higher rates of nonpayment, which reflected both a greater transition into nonpayment status for Black and Hispanic borrowers and a lower likelihood of resuming payments. However, strong house price appreciation in recent years, ...
Policy Hub , Volume 2021 , Issue 6 , Pages 40

Working Paper
Earnings Misperceptions and Household Distress

Households learn whether income changes are temporary or persistent from the history of their own paychecks. This paper develops a quantitative model of household financial distress that incorporates this inference and uses survey data on income expectations to estimate the extent to which households overweight recent outcomes—diagnostic expectations. The model improves on the standard full-information, rational-expectations benchmark in two key dimensions: it explains financial distress without assuming extreme impatience, and it more accurately captures the empirical correlation between ...
Working Papers , Paper 2025-030

Working Paper
Automated Credit Limit Increases and Consumer Welfare

In the United States, credit card companies frequently use machine learning algorithms to proactively raise credit limits for borrowers. In contrast, an increasing number of countries have begun to prohibit credit limit increases initiated by banks rather than consumers. In this paper, we exploit detailed regulatory micro data to examine the extent to which bank-initiated credit limit increases are directed towards individuals with revolving debt. We then develop a model that captures the costs and benefits of regulating proactive credit limit increases, which we use to quantify their ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2025-088

FILTER BY year

FILTER BY Content Type

FILTER BY Author

Willen, Paul S. 14 items

Blascak, Nathan 11 items

Lambie-Hanson, Lauren 10 items

Gerardi, Kristopher S. 9 items

Scharlemann, Tess C. 7 items

Van der Klaauw, Wilbert 6 items

show more (205)

FILTER BY Jel Classification

G21 37 items

D14 29 items

E21 25 items

J15 16 items

G53 13 items

show more (96)

FILTER BY Keywords

credit cards 11 items

mortgage 10 items

COVID-19 9 items

home equity 9 items

student loans 9 items

consumer credit 8 items

show more (384)

PREVIOUS / NEXT