Borrow

Many 401(k) retirement plans allow participants to take loans from their accounts before they retire. However, if they have not paid them off before leaving their jobs, they must pay them in full immediately. Based on a large dataset from Vanguard, this study is the first of its kind to quantify how many people take out loans and, of those, how many default. It proposes changes in retirement policy to reduce the financial risk posed by these loans, particularly for vulnerable groups.

We evaluate laws designed to protect borrowers from foreclosure. We find that these laws delay but do not prevent foreclosures. We first compare states that require lenders to seek judicial permission to foreclose with states that do not. Borrowers in judicial states are no more likely to cure and no more likely to renegotiate their loans, but the delays lead to a build-up in these states of persistently delinquent borrowers, the vast majority of whom eventually lose their homes. We next analyze a "right-to-cure" law instituted in Massachusetts on May 1, 2008.

We present new experimental evidence on heterogeneity in the formation of inflation expectations and relate the variation to economic literacy and demographics. The experimental design allows us to investigate two channels through which expectations-formation may vary across individuals: (1) the choice of information and (2) the use of given information. Subjects who are more economically literate perform better along both dimensions—they choose more-relevant information and make better use of given information.

Household financial planning can be challenging and household members often lack basic financial literacy skills. This paper discusses the potential and pitfalls of one approach to solving these problems—the development and dissemination of financial guidelines simple enough to be explained in graphic form. The discussion is motivated by the history of nutritional guidelines, namely the Food Pyramid and MyPlate.

This report describes several linked empirical studies that examine the activities of public libraries in increasing the financial literacy of their service population. It describes a qualitative field study of librarians’ perceptions of the challenges in offering financial literacy-based information and services, and a parallel study of the perceptions of six “partners” – or outside organizations or individuals - that work with libraries to offer programs and services.

Abstract: American parents, teachers, and policymakers generally express strong support for personal financial education for high school students, despite a need for further research to determine if such education is effective in improving long-term decision-making capabilities. However, research in related fields such as child development and behavioral economics suggests that personal financial learning begins at an early age and encompasses a broad array of general decision-making skills rather than just narrowly financial topics.

Homeownership counseling can help consumers learn about buying a home and give them tools to deal with setbacks that could keep them from making timely mortgage payments. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approves and provides grants to housing counseling agencies and has also implemented a requirement that borrowers seeking federally insured reverse mortgages through the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program receive counseling before taking out a HECM. The U.S.

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of credit availability on small firm survivability over the period 2004 to 2008 for non-publicly traded small enterprises. Using data from the 2003 Survey of Small Business Finances, we develop failure prediction models for a sample of small firms that were confirmed to have been in business as of December 2003, with particular attention to the impact of credit constraints. We find that credit constrained firms were significantly more likely to go out of business than non constrained firms.

Abstract: Despite the recent flood of foreclosures on residential mortgages, little is known about what happens to borrowers and their households after their mortgage has been foreclosed. We study the post-foreclosure experience of U.S. households using a unique dataset based on the credit reports of a large panel of individuals to from 1999 to 2010. Although foreclosure considerably raises the probability of moving, the majority of post-foreclosure migrants do not end up in substantially less desirable neighborhoods or more crowded living conditions.

This paper presents a dynamic model of the decision to pursue a college education in which students face uncertainty about their future income stream after graduation due to unobserved heterogeneity in their innate scholastic ability. After students matriculate and start taking exams, they reevaluate their expectations about succeeding in college and may find it optimal to drop out and join the workforce without completing an undergraduate degree.