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Intermediation Frictions in Debt Relief: Evidence from CARES Act Forbearance

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Abstract

We study the role of mortgage servicers in implementing the CARES Act mortgage forbearance program during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite universal eligibility,we document that a significant number of federally backed mortgage borrowers be-come delinquent during the pandemic without successfully entering into a forbearance program, and that the relative frequency of these "missing" forbearances varies significantly across mortgage servicers for otherwise identical loans. Forbearance out-comes are systematically related to servicer characteristics including size, liquidity and organizational form, consistent with the role of economic incentives in shaping servicer behavior. We also use servicer-level variation in forbearance outcomes to estimate the causal effect of forbearance on borrower outcomes. We find that assignment to a "high-forbearance" servicer translates to a significantly higher non-payment rate,and we find evidence that part of this additional household liquidity is used to pay down high-cost credit card debt.

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  • You Suk Kim & Donghoon Lee & Tess C. Scharlemann & James Vickery, 2022. "Intermediation Frictions in Debt Relief: Evidence from CARES Act Forbearance," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-017, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2022-17
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2022.017
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    Cited by:

    1. Sean Chanwook Lee & Omeed Maghzian, 2023. "Household Liquidity and Macroeconomic Stabilization: Evidence from Mortgage Forbearance," Working Papers 23-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    2. Sandler, Ryan, 2023. "Aligning incentives: The effect of mortgage servicing rules on foreclosures and delinquency," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    3. Goodman, Laurie & Zhu, Jun, 2023. "Single borrowers versus coborrowers in the pandemic: Mortgage forbearance take-up and performance," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(PB).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mortgage; Forbearance; Debt relief; CARES Act; COVID-19; Liquidity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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