Kamila Sommer

Fertility Choice in a Life Cycle Model with Idiosyncratic Uninsurable Earnings Risk

Motivated by large shifts in uninsurable earnings risk over time, this paper studies the link between delaying and reducing fertility on the one hand, and earnings and fertility risks on the other. When children are modeled as consumption commitments, increases in earnings risk are associated with a reduction in family sizes and patterns of delayed childbearing. Since household ability to bear children declines with age, the postponement of birth associated with the increased earnings risk drives down the number of birth per family further. An access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) is shown to have only a limited offsetting effect.

Student Loans and Homeownership Trends

The increases in student loan debt and delinquencies over the past few years have raised concerns about whether heavy student loan debt burdens are making it more difficult for young households to become homeowners.

A Trillion Dollar Question: What Predicts Student Loan Delinquencies?

The recent significant increase in student loan delinquencies has generated interest in understanding the key factors predicting the non-performance of these loans. However, despite the large size of the student loan market, existing analyses have been limited by data. This paper studies predictors of student loan delinquencies using a nationally representative panel dataset that anonymously combines individual credit bureau records with Pell Grant and Federal student loan recipient information, records on college enrollment, graduation and major, and school characteristics. We show that borrower-level credit characteristics are important predictors of student loan delinquencies. In particular, credit scores of young borrowers are highly predictive of future student loan delinquencies, even when measured well before borrowers enter repayment. In marked contrast, our results point to only a limited power of student debt levels in predicting future student loan credit events. Our findings have potentially useful practical implications. For example, access to credit file information when borrowers exit school could help to more effectively target student loan borrowers who might benefit from enrolling in income-driven repayment or loan modification plans.

On the Effect of Student Loans on Access to Homeownership

This paper estimates the effect of student loan debt on subsequent homeownership in a uniquely constructed administrative data set for a nationally representative cohort aged 23 to 31 in 2004 and followed over time, from 1997 to 2010. Our unique data combine anonymized individual credit bureau data with college enrollment histories and school characteristics associated with each enrollment spell, as well as several other data sources. To identify the causal effect of student loans on homeownership, we instrument for the amount of the individuals student loan debt using changes to the in-state tuition rate at public 4-year colleges in the students home state. We find that a 10 percent increase in student loan debt causes a 1 to 2 percentage point drop in the homeownership rate for student loan borrowers during the first five years after exiting school. Validity tests suggest that the results are not confounded by local economic conditions or non-random selection int o the estimation sample.

A New Measure of Housing Wealth in the Financial Accounts of the United States

This note introduces a new method for measuring the aggregate value of own-use residential real estate in the United States from 2001 to present.

Student Loan Debt and Aggregate Consumption Growth

Although student debt service is undoubtedly a source of severe financial strain for some individuals, in this discussion we show that the direct effect of increased student debt service on aggregate consumption growth is likely small.

Student Loans and Homeownership

We estimate the effect of student loan debt on subsequent homeownership in a uniquely constructed administrative dataset for a nationally representative cohort. We instrument for the amount of individual student debt using changes to the in-state tuition rate at public 4-year colleges in the students home state. A

A Trillion Dollar Question : What Predicts Student Loan Delinquency Risk?

1,000 increase in student loan debt lowers the homeownership rate by about 1.5 percentage points for public 4-year college-goers during their mid 20s, equivalent to an average delay of 2.5 months in attaining homeownership. Validity tests suggest that the results are not confounded by local economic conditions or changes in educational outcomes.

The equilibrium effect of fundamentals on house prices and rents

The recent significant increase in student loan delinquencies has generated interest in understanding the key factors predicting the non-performance of these loans. However, despite the large size of the student loan market, existing analyses have been limited by data. This paper studies predictors of student loan delinquencies using a nationally representative panel dataset that anonymously combines individual credit bureau records with Pell Grant and Federal student loan recipient information, records on college enrollment, graduation and major, and school characteristics. We show that borrower-level credit characteristics are important predictors of student loan delinquencies. In particular, credit scores of young borrowers are highly predictive of future student loan delinquencies, even when measured well before borrowers enter repayment. In marked contrast, our results point to only a limited power of student debt levels in predicting future student loan credit events. Our findings have potentially useful practical implications. For example, access to credit file information when borrowers exit school could help to more effectively target student loan borrowers who might benefit from enrolling in income-driven repayment or loan modification plans.