IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ran/wpaper/wr-937.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financial Literacy, Social Perception and Strategic Default

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy Burke
  • Kata Mihaly

Abstract

As a result of sustained housing market fragility, a growing number of borrowers are walking away from their underwater homes even though they have the ability to pay. Despite recent advances, questions remain about what influences this decision. In this paper, the authors use survey data to examine the role of social expectations, financial literacy and knowledge of default consequences. They find that homeowners who believe that others are likely to strategically default in the future are more willing to walk away as they anticipate reduced social stigma. Financially literate borrowers appear better able to calculate the benefits of strategically defaulting and are more willing to walk away at high levels of shortfall. They also find evidence that those who better understand the consequences of default, particularly that a default's impact on one's credit score weakens over time, have a higher willingness to walk away. Their results suggest that policies that help shape expectations about future strategic defaults may influence present foreclosures.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy Burke & Kata Mihaly, 2012. "Financial Literacy, Social Perception and Strategic Default," Working Papers WR-937, RAND Corporation.
    • Handle: RePEc:ran:wpaper:wr-937
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2012/RAND_WR937.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kristopher Gerardi & Adam Hale Shapiro & Paul S. Willen, 2007. "Subprime outcomes: risky mortgages, homeownership experiences, and foreclosures," Working Papers 07-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    2. Charles Towe & Chad Lawley, 2013. "The Contagion Effect of Neighboring Foreclosures," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 313-335, May.
    3. Andra C. Ghent & Marianna Kudlyak, 2010. "Recourse and residential mortgage default: theory and evidence from U.S. states," Working Paper 09-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    4. Foote, Christopher L. & Gerardi, Kristopher & Willen, Paul S., 2008. "Negative equity and foreclosure: Theory and evidence," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 234-245, September.
    5. Patrick Bajari & Chenghuan Sean Chu & Minjung Park, 2008. "An Empirical Model of Subprime Mortgage Default From 2000 to 2007," NBER Working Papers 14625, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Michael J. Seiler & Vicky L. Seiler & Mark A. Lane & David M. Harrison, 2012. "Fear, Shame and Guilt: Economic and Behavioral Motivations for Strategic Default," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 40, pages 199-233, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tran Huynh, 2023. "Financial Literacy and Mortgage Payment Delinquency?," Jena Economics Research Papers 2023-007, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    2. Kanis Saengchote & Krislert Samphantharak, 2020. "Delinquency Priority in Consumer Credit: Evidence from Thai Microdata," PIER Discussion Papers 135, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara, 2021. "Collateral Value and Strategic Default: Evidence from Auto Loans," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 59(3), pages 209-240, June.
    4. Gregory Connor & Thomas Flavin, 2013. "Irish Mortgage Default Optionality," Economics Department Working Paper Series n243-13.pdf, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    5. Saengchote, Kanis & Samphantharak, Krislert, 2022. "Banking relationship and default priority in consumer credit: Evidence from Thai microdata," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    6. Connor, Gregory & Flavin, Thomas, 2015. "Strategic, unaffordability and dual-trigger default in the Irish mortgage market," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 59-75.
    7. Bruhn, Miriam & Lara Ibarra, Gabriel & McKenzie, David, 2013. "Why is voluntary financial education so unpopular ? Experimental evidence from Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6439, The World Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Khandani, Amir E. & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C., 2013. "Systemic risk and the refinancing ratchet effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 29-45.
    2. Chen L. Miller, 2018. "Comparison of Two Affordable Housing Finance Channels," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 21(2), pages 227-250.
    3. Thomas Schelkle, 2018. "Mortgage Default during the U.S. Mortgage Crisis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(6), pages 1101-1137, September.
    4. Modestino, Alicia Sasser & Dennett, Julia, 2013. "Are American homeowners locked into their houses? The impact of housing market conditions on state-to-state migration," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 322-337.
    5. Guiso, Luigi & Zingales, Luigi & Sapienza, Paola, 2009. "Moral and Social Constraints to Strategic Default on Mortgages," CEPR Discussion Papers 7352, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Gyourko, Joseph & Tracy, Joseph, 2014. "Reconciling theory and empirics on the role of unemployment in mortgage default," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 87-96.
    7. Goodstein, Ryan & Hanouna, Paul & Ramirez, Carlos D. & Stahel, Christof W., 2017. "Contagion effects in strategic mortgage defaults," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 50-60.
    8. Steven Laufer, 2018. "Equity Extraction and Mortgage Default," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 28, pages 1-33, April.
    9. Chomsisengphet, Souphala & Kiefer, Hua & Liu, Xiaodong, 2018. "Spillover effects in home mortgage defaults: Identifying the power neighbor," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 68-82.
    10. Kristopher Gerardi & Kyle F. Herkenhoff & Lee E. Ohanian & Paul S. Willen, 2018. "Can’t Pay or Won’t Pay? Unemployment, Negative Equity, and Strategic Default," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(3), pages 1098-1131.
    11. Kanis Saengchote & Krislert Samphantharak, 2020. "Delinquency Priority in Consumer Credit: Evidence from Thai Microdata," PIER Discussion Papers 135, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Neil Bhutta & Jane K. Dokko & Hui Shan, 2010. "The depth of negative equity and mortgage default decisions," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2010-35, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. Damian Damianov & Cheng Yan & Xiangdong Wang, 2018. "Measures of mortgage default risk and local house price dynamics ," ERES eres2018_163, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    14. Nathan B. Anderson & Jane K. Dokko, 2016. "Liquidity Problems and Early Payment Default among Subprime Mortgages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(5), pages 897-912, December.
    15. Fernando Ferreira & Joseph Gyourko, 2011. "Anatomy of the Beginning of the Housing Boom: U.S. Neighborhoods and Metropolitan Areas, 1993-2009," NBER Working Papers 17374, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Richard Chamboko & Jorge Miguel Bravo, 2020. "A Multi-State Approach to Modelling Intermediate Events and Multiple Mortgage Loan Outcomes," Risks, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-29, June.
    17. Li, Xianghong & Zhao, Xinlei, 2016. "Strategic Default Induced by Loan Modification Programs," MPRA Paper 73594, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Alin Marius Andries & Anca Copaciu & Radu Popa & Razvan Vlahu, 2021. "Recourse and (strategic) mortgage defaults: Evidence from changes in housing market laws," Working Papers 727, DNB.
    19. Jeffrey P. Cohen & Cletus C. Coughlin & Vincent W. Yao, 2016. "Sales of Distressed Residential Property: What Have We Learned from Recent Research?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 98(3), pages 159-188.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ran:wpaper:wr-937. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benson Wong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lpranus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.