Sources of Inaction in Household Finance: Evidence from the Danish Mortgage Markets

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Andersen, Steffen; Campbell, John Y.; Nielsen, Kasper Meisner; Ramadorai, Tarun
• 署名单位: Copenhagen Business School; Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Imperial College London; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer20180865
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 3184-3230
• 关键词: stock-market; optimal inattention; CONSUMER CONFUSION; portfolio choice; menu costs; Heterogeneity; borrowers; inertia; RISK; constraints

摘要

We build an empirical model to attribute delays in mortgage refinancing to psychological costs inhibiting refinancing until incentives are sufficiently strong; and behavior, potentially attributable to information-gathering costs, lowering the probability of household refinancing per unit time at any incentive. We estimate the model on administrative panel data from Denmark, where mortgage refinancing without cash-out is unconstrained. Middle-aged and wealthy households act as if they have high psychological refinancing costs; but older, poorer, and less-educated households refinance with lower probability irrespective of incentives, thereby achieving lower savings. We use the model to understand frictions in the mortgage channel of monetary policy transmission.