Understanding the Determinants of Household Default Decisions in the Mortgage Crisis

了解家庭抵押贷款违约决定自2007年以来，超过500万房主因丧失抵押品赎回权而失去了房屋。另有400万借款人目前拖欠抵押贷款超过60天，他们很有可能成为下一个失去住房的人。1500万房主（超过三分之一有抵押贷款）面临着放弃抵押贷款的风险，因为他们的房屋价值低于他们欠抵押贷款机构的金额。丧失抵押品赎回权不仅对房主来说是痛苦的，对周围的社区也是痛苦的。当房屋丧失抵押品赎回权时，它们往往年久失修，周围的财产价值下降，犯罪可能增加，整个社区可能恶化。本项目将调查影响借款人拖欠抵押贷款决定的三个因素的重要性，从而可能影响止赎危机的严重程度以及贷方和政策制定者对此的反应：抵押贷款修改计划和战略行为：抵押贷款修改计划在多大程度上导致不太可能违约的借款人违约(？战略行为?)。2。违约传染：在住房危机期间，一个房主的抵押贷款违约（或止赎）影响相邻房主行为的不同渠道的程度和相对重要性。追索权法律的作用：追索权法律如何影响借款人拖欠抵押贷款的可能性。为了研究这些因素，该项目将获取并组装一个独特的数据库，该数据库合并了四个以前从未合并过的数据源：(i)超过3000万私人证券化抵押贷款的月度业绩数据，（ii）私人证券化抵押贷款借款人的月度消费信贷报告，（iii）确定所有抵押贷款和销售的契约记录？借款人是自住者还是投资者？在34个州的大都市统计区（msa），以及（iv） HMDA数据显示几乎所有抵押贷款申请人的种族，民族和收入。利用这些数据，该项目将为房主提供新的证据。在住房危机期间是否支付抵押贷款的决定，帮助经济学家和政策制定者更好地理解具有广泛经济和社会影响的关键消费者金融决策。抵押贷款修改计划和战略行为本项目将量化最近的一项修改计划所产生的战略行为的程度，该计划为拖欠至少两个月抵押贷款的借款人提供了福利。2008年夏天，州检察长对全国金融公司提起诉讼，该计划是为了回应诉讼而设立的。作为2008年10月公开宣布的和解协议的一部分，Countrywide同意在全美范围内为Countrywide服务的次级抵押贷款实施抵押贷款修改计划。和解协议的一个核心内容是，Countrywide承诺为拖欠两个月抵押贷款的借款人提供快速的、未经请求的贷款修改。Countrywide计划的广泛范围，以及它对借款人违约才能获得福利的要求，使其成为一个潜在有用的实验，可以深入了解借款人的行为，以应对其他将严重违约作为合格要求的修改计划。我们的结果也可以为关于抵押贷款修改政策之间的效率权衡的辩论提供信息，这些政策通过使用简单但潜在可操纵的资格标准（如违约要求）和抵押贷款修改政策（依赖于更昂贵和严格的借款人筛选）来快速提供帮助。违约传染当房主拖欠抵押贷款时，他/她的邻居是否也更有可能拖欠？如果是，房主通过哪些渠道？他的违约决定影响了他/她的邻居？邻居们的反应是因为他们预计自己的财产价值在不久的将来会因为房主的违约而下跌吗？价格效应？)，或者邻居们的反应是因为他们在看到其他房主违约后重新评估违约的道德、心理或社会成本(？社会效应?)?还是仅仅因为邻居们经历了共同的经济冲击或有共同的违约倾向，他们的违约决定就存在相关性？排序的影响?)本项目旨在实施几种不同的策略，以确定这些渠道的相对重要性。例如，一种策略检查房主违约（或止赎）对邻居行为的影响是否取决于房主和邻居是否拥有相同的种族或种族。如果房主违约的影响在同一种族或民族的邻居和不同种族或民族的邻居之间有所不同，这种差异可能表明，社会影响可能是解释违约决策的一个重要因素。这种策略潜在地抵消了价格和分类效应，因为它比较了同一社区中不同种族和民族背景的邻居。当然，反应的差异可能是由于排序效应（如区域经济冲击）对种族或民族群体的影响不同。为了控制分类效应，该项目利用家庭信贷的独特数据来隔离所谓的战略违约；也就是说，拖欠信用卡和学生/汽车贷款但停止支付抵押贷款的借款人违约。使用具有特定街道地址的契约数据，该项目还可以通过比较地理位置接近的邻居和同一街道或死胡同的邻居与不同街道或相反死胡同的邻居的行为来保持恒定的价格效应，这些街道或死胡同的社会联系可能不那么强。追索权法的作用州追索权法决定了房主是否对丧失抵押品赎回权出售后的任何抵押贷款余额承担个人责任（只有当房屋资不抵债时，余额才会保留）。例如，抵押贷款债务超过了房屋的价值)。如果房主可以承担个人责任，抵押贷款被称为“追索权”。否则，是无追索权的。在追索权法律方面，州际和州内存在着很大的差异。这个项目假设追索权法是最具约束力的？并影响战略默认决策？对水下?拥有大量非住房资产的房主，如果抵押贷款银行在止赎出售后起诉收取剩余余额，这些资产可能会被没收。在这些房主中，那些无追索权抵押贷款的人可能比那些有追索权抵押贷款的人表现出更高的违约率。该项目将评估追索权法律是否影响违约决定，如果有影响，则确定对这些法律作出反应的借款人的特征，并评估这些房主是否占抵押贷款房主的很大比例。

Understanding Household Mortgage Default DecisionsMore than five million homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure since 2007. Another four million borrowers are currently more than sixty days delinquent on their mortgage and face the very real possibility that they will be next to lose their homes. Fifteen million homeowners, more than one in three with a mortgage, are at risk of walking away from their mortgage because their homes are worth less than what they owe to mortgage lenders. Foreclosures are painful not only to the homeowners who go through them, but also to surrounding communities. As houses go through foreclosure, they often fall into disrepair, surrounding property values fall, crime may increase, and the overall community can deteriorate.This project will investigate the importance of three factors that impact the borrower's decision to default on a mortgage and thus may affect the severity of the foreclosure crisis and the response of lenders and policymakers to it:1. Mortgage modification programs and strategic behavior: The extent to which mortgage modification programs induce defaults among borrowers who were unlikely to default otherwise (?strategic behavior?).2. Default contagion: The extent and the relative importance of the different channels through which a mortgage default (or foreclosure) by one homeowner affects the behavior of neighboring homeowners during the housing crisis.3. The role of recourse laws: How laws governing recourse affect the likelihood of borrower defaulting on a mortgage.To study these factors, this project will acquire and assemble a unique database that merges four data sources that have never previously been combined: (i) monthly performance data on more than thirty million privately securitized mortgages, (ii) monthly consumer credit reports for borrowers with privately securitized mortgages, (iii) deeds records identifying all mortgages and sales?and whether the borrower is an owner-occupant or investor?in metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in thirty-four states, and (iv) HMDA data showing race, ethnicity, and income of almost all mortgage applicants.Using these data, this project will provide new evidence on a homeowner?s decision of whether to pay a mortgage during the housing crisis, helping economists and policy makers better understand a critical consumer financial decision with broad economic and social implications.1. Mortgage modification programs and strategic behaviorThis project will quantify the extent of strategic behavior generated by a recent modification program that extends benefits to borrowers who have missed at least two months of mortgage payments. The program was created in response to litigation brought by state attorneys general against Countrywide Financial Corporation during the summer of 2008. As part of a settlement announced publicly in October 2008, Countrywide agreed to implement a mortgage modification program for Countrywide-serviced, subprime mortgages throughout the United States. A centerpiece of the settlement was Countrywide's commitment to offer expedited, unsolicited loan modifications to borrowers who had missed two months of mortgage payments. The widespread scope of the Countrywide program, and its requirement that a borrower be delinquent in order to receive benefits, makes it a potentially useful experiment that could provide insight into borrower behavior in response to other modification programs using serious delinquency as eligibly requirement. Our results could also inform the debate concerning the efficiency trade-off between mortgage modification policies that extend help quickly by using simple but potentially manipulable eligibility criteria such as a delinquency requirement and mortgage modification polices that rely on more costly and rigorous screening of borrowers.2. Default contagionWhen a homeowner defaults on her mortgage, are his/her neighbors more likely to default on theirs? If so, what are the channels through which a homeowner?s default decision influences his/her neighbors? Do neighbors respond because they expect their own property values to fall in the near future as a result of the homeowner's default (?price effects?), or do neighbors respond because they reassess the moral, psychological, or social costs of default after seeing a fellow homeowner default (?social effects?)? Or is there a correlation in neighbors' default decisions simply because they experience common economic shocks or share a common propensity to default (?sorting effects?).This project aims to implements several different strategies to identify the relative importance of these channels. For example, one strategy examines whether the effect of a homeowner's default (or foreclosure) on neighbors' behavior depends on whether the homeowners and neighbors share the same ethnicity or race. If the effect of a homeowner's default differs between neighbors with the same race or ethnicity and neighbors with different race or ethnicity, the difference could suggest that social effects can be an important factor in explaining default decisions. This strategy potentially neutralizes price and sorting effects because it compares neighbors in the same community, but with different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Of course, it is possible that a difference in response could be due to sorting effects (like regional economic shocks) affecting racial or ethnic groups differently. To control for sorting effects, the project takes advantage of unique data on household credit to isolate so-called strategic defaults; that is, defaults by borrowers who remain current on their credit cards and student/car loans but stop making mortgage payments. Using deeds data with specific street addresses, the project can also hold constant price effects by comparing the behavior of neighbors in close geographic proximity and on the same street or cul-de-sac with neighbors on different streets or on opposite cul-de-sacs, where social connections may be less strong.3. The role of recourse lawsA state recourse law determines whether a homeowner is personally liable for any mortgage balance that remains after a foreclosure sale (a balance will remain only if the home is ?underwater,? i.e., the mortgage debt exceeds the value of the home). If the homeowner can be made personally liable, the mortgage is called ?recourse.? Otherwise, it is ?non-recourse.? There is substantial inter-state and intra-state variation in recourse laws. This project hypothesizes that recourse laws are the most binding?and affect strategic default decisions?for ?underwater? homeowners who have substantial non-housing assets that could be seized in the event that the mortgage bank sues to collect the remaining balance after a foreclosure sale. Among these homeowners, those with non-recourse mortgages may exhibit higher default rates than those with recourse mortgages. This project will assess whether recourse laws affect default decisions and, if they do, identify the characteristics of borrowers who are responsive to these laws and assess whether these homeowners represent a significant proportion of homeowners with a mortgage.