Download This PaperThe Babies of Mortgage Market Deregulation
Review of Financial Studies, 2020
64 Pages Posted: 23 Jul 2014 Last revised: 29 Nov 2021
Date Written: February 16, 2020
Abstract
This paper documents that mortgage market deregulation helps mitigate the risk of population aging by affecting a foundational family-level decision: the choice to have children. Using a US federal regulator ruling, I show that young households fully exposed to mortgage market deregulation increase their probability of purchasing a home and having a child by six percentage points. Supplemental tests reject alternative hypotheses based on income or housing wealth growth and, instead, suggest that access to space is the relevant economic mechanism. Collectively, the evidence indicates that increased access to mortgage credit impacts the total number of children in the economy.
Keywords: financial regulation; banking; access to credit; fertility; family economics; household finance; housing; housing demand
JEL Classification: D1, G01, G21, G28, J13, K23, R21, R31, R38
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Isaac Hacamo (Contact Author)
Indiana University - Kelley School of Business - Department of Finance ( email )
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