The incidence of mis-selling, fraud, and poor customer service by retail banks is significantly higher in markets with lower income and educational attainment. Further, areas with a higher share of minority population experience significantly worse outcomes even after controlling for factors such as income, education, and house price changes. Regulations aimed at improving access to credit to such areas are partly responsible for these findings. Specifically, low-to-moderate-income (LMI) areas targeted by the Community Reinvestment Act have significantly worse outcomes and this effect is magnified further for LMI areas with high-minority population. The results highlight an unintended adverse consequence of such quantity-focused regulations on the quality of credit to poor and minority customers.

We find the Small Business Administration's disaster-relief home loan program denies significantly more loans in areas with larger shares of minorities, subprime borrowers, and higher income inequality. We find that risk-insensitive loan pricing -- a feature present in many regulated and government-run lending programs -- is a primary driver of these disparities in access to credit. 

We show the differences in denial rates are disproportionately high compared to counterfactual both private-market and government-insured risk-sensitive loan pricing programs. Thus, despite ensuring "fair" prices, the use of risk-insensitive pricing may lead to "unfair" access to credit. 

We show that a widespread withdrawal by the four largest U.S banks (Big4) was the primary driver of the steep decline in traditional bank mortgage lending after the crisis. We find that small banks' credit supply was highly responsive to changes in Big4 lending at the county level: their sensitivity was twice (four times)  as strong as shadow banks (fintech lenders). As a result, small banks maintained their aggregate market share despite rapid nonbank  growth throughout the country. Small banks' relative advantage in balance-sheet lending for loans below the jumbo-conforming size limit is the key driver of our results.

We study individual labor market decisions during the house price run-up of the early 2000s using the career paths of nearly 7 million workers. We find that individuals switch careers to become real estate agents (REAs) at higher rates in areas with stronger house price growth, despite little or no growth in average REA wages. We find that those drawn into real estate come from virtually all parts of the skill, wage, and education spectrums, and respond to both fundamental and non-fundamental house price growth. Examining wages, we find that those drawn into REA near the peak of the run-up experienced substantially lower wage paths than similar non-entrants through the end of our sample in 2017. These effects are particularly severe for entrants in areas with higher non-fundamental growth. Overall, we shed light on some important consequences of house price fluctuations, both fundamental and non-fundamental, on labor market outcomes.

We use individual-level data to quantify the effect of getting a mortgage on non-mortgage credit outcomes. We use a regression discontinuity design and find that individuals that transition to homeownership increase their credit card and auto balances by $8,300 and $14,800, suggesting a debt spillover effect from home ownership. This increase in debt is equivalent to 13% of the average mortgage loan, and we provide evidence that it is mainly driven by a change in credit demand. We find that this increase in debt is driven by individuals with higher financial experience, while their overall ability to service their debt remains unchanged. In contrast, low-experience individuals do not increase their debt, but are relatively more likely to experience a deterioration in their financial health. Taken together, these results highlight the role financial experience plays in managing the debt burden associated to a new home.