On Transitory Earnings

The paper develops a concept of transitory earnings and contrasts this source of earnings to core (or recurring) earnings. It is shown that any two of the following three attributes of transitory earnings imply the third: (i) forecasting irrelevance with respect to next-period aggregate earnings, (ii) value irrelevance, and (iii) unpredictability. The paper makes the case that the current dirty surplus items make sense, especially if one expands the valuation perspective to also allow for agency considerations.     

Cointegration and causal relations in mortgage and capital markets

In years past, credit rationing resulted in the primary mortgage market being segmented from national capital markets. Some research suggests that the deregulation of depository institutions in the early 1980s along with the exponential growth in the secondary mortgage market, has resulted in a primary mortgage market more fully integrated with national capital markets. This study employs Granger Causality to test primary and secondary mortgage market segmentation. Our findings support the conclusion that causality is unidirectional from the treasury market to the primary and secondary mortgage market. The results also indicate that mortgage market speed of adjustment increased significantly by the end of the decade.     

The Effect of Mortgage Price and Default Risk on Mortgage Spreads

Variations over time in mortgage yield spreads should reflect changes in the underlying prepayment option value; moreover, the relationship between mortgage yield spreads and interest rate dynamics should weaken as the value of the borrowers prepayment option declines. We verify this hypothesis through an empirical analysis of residential mortgage yield spread behavior, and we also present evidence that the strength of the relationship between mortgage spreads and interest rate dynamics weakens (strengthens) as the level of default risk increases (decreases). This result is consistent with the competing risks effect between a borrowers option to prepay or default. Our results demonstrate the importance of accounting for mortgage price discount to par as well as default risk when developing time series of mortgage yields.     

The pricing of FIREARMs (“Falling Interest Rate Adjustable-Rate Mortgages”)

The purpose of this article is to propose and price a new type of adjustable-rate mortgage: the FIREARM (Falling Interest Rate Adjustable-Rate Mortgage). The interest payments on this mortgage adjust downward whenever interest rates decline, while remaining stable when interest rates increase. The FIREARM is alternatively priced as a prepayable and non-prepayable mortgage with a spread over the short-term interest rate. We price these two instruments and contrast their prices with those of fixed-rate mortgages using the parsimonious assumptions of a non-stationary arbitrage-free binomial term structure model.     

Balance Sheets, the Transfer Problem, and Financial Crises

In a world of high capital mobility, the threat of speculative attack becomes a central issue of macroeconomicpolicy. While first-generation and second-generation models of speculative attacks both have considerablerelevance to particular financial crises of the 1990s, a third-generation model is needed to make sense of thenumber and nature of the emerging market crises of 1997-98. Most of the recent attempts to produce such amodel have argued that the core of the problem lies in the banking system. This paper sketches another candidatefor third-generation crisis modeling—one that emphasizes two facts that have been omitted from formal modelsto date: the role of companies' balance sheets in determining their ability to invest, and that of capital flows inaffecting the real exchange rate.     

Company Tax Structure and Company Tax Incidence

This paper reviews conflicting theories of company tax incidence impliedby the alternative new and traditional views of dividends andexamines their contrasting policy implications. Whereas, under thetraditional view, closer integration of the corporate and personalincome tax systems is suggested, an alternative policy orientationemphasizing the non-distorting features of the classical system is impliedby the new view. Even if the traditional view is accepted, theimplications for design and reform of the company tax vary widely underalternative specifications of domestic and international tax policy objectives. Schedular alternatives to global income taxation are alsoconsidered.     

Parallel cartoons of fractal models of finance

Summary. Having been crafted to welcome a new scientific journal, this paper looks forward but requires no special prerequisite. The argument builds on a technical wrinkle (used earlier but explained here fully for the first time), namely, the authors grid-bound variant of Brownian motion B(t). While B(t) itself is additive, this variant is a multiplicative recursive process the author calls a cartoon. Reliance on this and related cartoons allows a new perspicuous exposition of the various fractal/multifractal models for the variation of financial prices. These illustrations do not claim to represent reality in its full detail, but suffice to imitate and bring out its principal features, namely, long tailedness, long dependence, and clustering. The goal is to convince the reader that the fractals/multifractals are not an exotic technical nightmare that could be avoided. In fact, the authors models arose successively as proper, natural, and even unavoidable generalization of the Brownian motion model of price variation. Considered within the context of those generalizations, the original Brownian comes out as very special and narrowly constricted, while the fractal/multifractal models come out as nearly as simple and parsimonious as the Brownian. The cartoons are stylized recursive variants of the authors fractal/multifractal models, which are even more versatile and realistic.This revised version was published online in January 2005 with corrections to the Cover date.     

The “Rent-To-Own” mortgage and prepayment risk

The most important risk factor in the mortgage and mortgage-backed security market has been prepayment risk. Various innovations have arisen to deal with it but none hedge it fully. The Rent-To-Own (RTO) mortgage discussed here is a mortgage instrument that reduces or even reverses prepayment risk. It does so by creating an incentive structure within the framework of the mortgage contract that penalizes prepayment when interest rates are low and rewards it when interest rates are high. This is the opposite of standard mortgages. The RTO incentive structure is based on a unique buyout feature. Borrowers who want to buy out the financial interest of the lender may do so whenever they want, but the buyout price is a negative function of the market interest rates prevailing currently, that is, at the time of the buyout. Hence the lower these rates, the higher the buyout price. Other advantages of the RTO mortgage are also described.     

Conduit Entities: Implications of Indirect Tax-Efficient Financing Structures for Real Investment

As well known, companies shift income from high to low tax jurisdictions. Typically, profit shifting is achieved by direct financing structures whereby companies use debt finance in the high tax entity and equity finance in the low tax entity. However, certain tax policies can lead to indirect financing structures whereby a conduit entity provides an opportunity to achieve at least two deductions for interest expenses for an investment made in the host country. The effect of direct and indirect financing structures on real investment is compared.     

Does credit rationing affect residential investment? Déjà vu all over again

This paper develops an empirical model to examine the impacts of credit rationing on residential investment for the 1960–1984 period. Our statistical results strongly support the position that noninterest rate variables affect mortgage activity and housing construction. Though we find a structural change in the housing construction and mortgage markets in the early 1980s, probably attributable to capital market integration and financial institutional deregulation, noninterest rate terms continue to matter. In other words, credit rationing continues to be an allocative device in the housing and mortgage markets.Earlier versions of this article have been presented at the Western Economic Association Conference, Los Angeles, June 1988; the Tenth Pacific Regional Science Conference, Pusan, Korea, July 1987; the AREUEA Annual Meetings New York City, December 1985; and the American Finance Association Annual Meetings, San Francisco, December 1983.     

On the Economics of Subprime Lending

US mortgage markets have evolved radically in recent years. An important part of the change has been the rise of the subprime market, characterized by loans with high default rates, dominance by specialized subprime lenders rather than full-service lenders, and little coverage by the secondary mortgage market. In this paper, we examine these and other stylized facts with standard tools used by financial economists to describe market structure in other contexts. We use three models to examine market structure: an option-based approach to mortgage pricing in which we argue that subprime options are different from prime options, causing different contracts and prices; and two models based on asymmetric information–one with asymmetry between borrowers and lenders, and one with the asymmetry between lenders and the secondary market. In both of the asymmetric-information models, investors set up incentives for borrowers or loan sellers to reveal information, primarily through costs of rejection.     

Do mortgage rates vary based on household default characteristics? Evidence on rate sorting and credit rationing

Credit screening models suggest that lenders vary loan rates and debt ceilings across applicants on the basis of credit risk. We argue that regulatory constraints such as Fair Lending Laws may preclude rate sorting while increasing lender use of debt ceilings to adjust for applicant credit risk. Using household data from the 1983 SCF, we find that mortgage rates do not vary with applicant credit risk whereas related studies find that debt ceilings vary with borrower risk attributes. Together, these findings support arguments that regulatory constraints reduce rate sorting while increasing the use of non-price terms in the mortgage contract.     

A New Approach to Group Structure, Burden Sharing, and the Equilibrium Provision of Public Goods

In the received model of the voluntary provision of a pure public good, the usual practice is to proceed from assumptions about the group characteristics to inferences about an implied outcome. The approach advocated in this paper reverses the traditional direction. Assuming a Nash equilibrium, we ask how to characterize the diverse set of group characteristics which will support it. Approaching the problem from this angle we define three crucial characteristics of a group-equilibrium: consumer's free rider inducing supply, zero contribution-inducing wealth and voluntary surplus tribute which is the amount by which a person's actual income exceeds his/her zero-contribution inducing wealth. Defining these indicators we show how they form the foundation of a complete mapping between the distribution of individual characteristics of a group, and equilibrium public good supply. Certain questions such as the interaction between size of the group and heterogeneity of incomes and tastes not yet adequately addressed are shown to yield easily to this approach.     

Interest-only and principal-only mortgage strips as interest-rate contingent claims

Interest-only (IO) and principal-only (PO) mortgage strips are valued in a stochastic interest-rate environment. The prepayment rate of the underlying mortgages is affected by two considerations not present in the pure financially rational model: (1) The property owner's holding period is assumed to follow a Gamma distribution, resulting in the possibility of prepayment due to the sale of the property (i.e., prepayment that is too early based on market interest rates); and (2) borrowers are assumed to face heterogeneous transaction costs related to refinancing the existing mortgage, and delay refinancing when market conditions make it optimal to do so (refinancing too late). Properties of IO/PO strips are identified by the finite difference method.     

A General Theorem on the Comparative Statics of Changes in Risk

In this paper, the concept of absolutely riskier than is introduced to generalize Gollier's (Journal of Economic Theory, 66, 522–535) necessary and sufficient conditions for the comparative statics of a change in risk for risk averters. The restrictive assumption that the payoff function is monotonic in the risk is relaxed. The policymaker's choice problem, the newsboy problem, and a farmer's example are used to illustrate how easily the monotonicity assumption is violated. Finally, some important properties of the concept of absolutely riskier than, such as its relation with the concept of second-order stochastic dominance, are illustrated using the farmer's example.     

To the Water’s Edge,and Beyond: Effects of Shore Protection Projects on Beach Development

The effects on real estate development of shore-protection efforts that lower erosion rates and storm hazards are both controversial and difficult to detect. A simple theoretical model indicates that shore protection is likely to tilt development from areas a few hundred feet inland toward beachfront property. A modified repeat-sale house price index is used to measure price appreciation rates to the waters edge. We are able to formulate an extremely sensitive empirical test for a tilt in rates of house-price appreciation implied by a tilt in development. Surprisingly, we find no significant evidence that shore-protection efforts have produced additional beachfront development in the Florida counties studied. The method used in this article is quite general and could be used in a number of applications where an environmental effect impacts real estate differentially over space.     

Optimal Consumption Taxes and Social Security Under Tax Measurement Problems and Uncertainty

A representative individual lives for two periods; works when young and depends on savings and a government operated social security system when old—the returns on both sources of income, when old, are random. Due to administrative problems the returns to savings are observed with some measurement error. Two alternative consumption tax systems are considered; the Registered Asset Treatment (RAT) and the Non-Registered Asset Treatment (NRAT). The advantage of the RAT is that it can perform a social insurance role while the disadvantage is that it imposes measurement error risk. Correlation between the random return on saving and its measurement error can provide a risk-hedging role that can be further strengthened by the RAT version. The NRAT version neither provides social insurance nor imposes measurement error risk. Both tax systems hedge against the uncertainties in the social security system. The taxpayer engages in precautionary saving in response to future uncertainty.     

The relationship between the demand and supply of home financing and neighborhood characteristics: An empirical study of mortgage redlining

In this study the hypothesis that central cities are redlined was tested with data gathered from three separate central city and matching city-suburban areas. Potentially unmet mortgage demand was estimated from interviews of people who tried unsuccessfully to sell their homes. A hedonic price function revealed that these owners did not overprice their homes. However, they did not attribute their inability to sell to potential buyers' problems with financial institutions. A logit analysis of data provided by home buyers showed that individuals bought in the areas they preferred. We also found that central city and city-suburban home buyers got the type of mortgage they wanted at market terms and home owners in both areas had no difficulty in financing home repairs.This study was supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. SES8000 482.     

Strategic default,workout, and commercial mortgage valuation

This paper extends existing equilibrium commercial mortgage pricing models by endogenizing negotiated workout into the usual noncooperative lending game. Workout is a feasible subgame strategy for the lender to play whenever foreclosure transaction costs exist for either party to a loan transaction. In particular, negotiated workout solutions Pareto dominate the foreclosure alternative when default occurs. To obtain our results, we embed a cooperative bargaining game within a noncooperative mortgage loan/default game. We also address the valuation wedge problem that occurs when foreclosure transaction costs are introduced. Through the notion of replacement game equilibrium, we find symmetric mortgage pricing solutions that eliminate the valuation wedge and thus suggest that lending will occur in commercial real estate mortgage markets even when foreclosure transaction costs exist.     

Ethnicity, Endogeneity, and Housing Tenure Choice

Home ownership rates for New Zealanders of European descent aged twenty five to fifty four are 16 percentage points higher than for Maori in the same age group. This article explores the relative attainment of home ownership of the two ethnic groups by estimating a series of tenure choice models and decomposing the difference in rates into endowment and residual effects. Particular attention is given to the endogeneity of current income and wealth relative to the tenure choice decision and to the methods for decomposing group mean differences. The article also applies more appropriate methods for estimating incomes and wealth than have been used in most previous studies of tenure choice. The study concludes that only a small proportion of differences in home ownership rates is explained by household endowments. It is shown that controlling for the endogeneity of income and wealth has a substantial impact on the tenure choice and decomposition results.