Mortgage Contract Decisions and Mortgage Distress: Family and Financial Life-Cycle Factors

The U.S. economy experienced a dramatic rise in the price of owner occupied housing during 1999-2007, and then a precipitous decline from 2007 through 2009. In this paper we utilize data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) during 1999-2009 to study first the factors and borrowing decisions which were related to the run-up and then to see how these diverse positions in owner-occupied housing related to the subsequent difficulties and mortgage distress as of 2009. Our research shows that much of the rise and subsequent difficulties were concentrated among younger and less educated homeowners, and that the difficulties were also concentrated in selected real estate markets where home owners were allocating a substantial share of their income to debt service and other home related outlays such as taxes, utilities, and insurance. This pattern of high costs to support a housing position is interpreted as the result of a speculative price run-up supported by the joint decisions of the homeowners and their lenders. In this process the older population took on more mortgage debt than in prior years and may now have less capacity to support help to other adult family members living outside the home.

Wealth Dynamics in the 1980’s and 1990’s: Sweden and the U.S.

Given differences in public saving programs between Sweden and the United States, an examination of household private wealth accumulation in these two countries can be enlightening. In this paper we examine wealth inequality and mobility in Sweden and the United States over the past decade. We show that wealth inequality has been significantly greater in the U.S. than in Sweden and, while remaining relatively constant since the mid-1980’s in Sweden, has increased in the United States. In addition to less inequality and a higher median wealth, we also show that wealth quintile mobility in the 1990’s has been 25.7% higher in Sweden, as measured by Shorrocks’ index. Noting the role of various demographic components in shaping the patterns of wealth mobility as well as the importance of the initial wealth distribution, we utilize a matching algorithm that controls for these differences. Matching on the initial wealth distribution alone accounts for most of the mobility difference between the two countries and yields a Shorrocks’ index in the U.S. 11.1% less than that in Sweden. Adjusting for the large degree of imputation in the Swedish data, the U.S. index is only 3.4% to 6.1% less than that of Sweden. Along with exploring the role of racial composition differences, we conclude tha demographic variation between Sweden and the U.S. play very little role in explaining wealth mobility beyond that explained by the initial wealth distribution. Despite the higher quintile mobility in Sweden, dollar mobility is still high in the United States.Mobility; Wealth; Panel data; Statistical matching; Comparison U.S. - Sweden

Time Diary Measures of Investment in Young Children

There is a rising importance of human capital in the total capital stock of an economy. In this paper we discuss the nature of investments in children and sketch out the diverse kinds of inputs to the developmental process across different countries at selected time points. The observable inputs are time and goods and they can arise both in the home and in formal care settings. Estimates are given for Sweden and the U.S. The mere size of the total of these investments in early human capital, more than 20 percent of GDP for Sweden, raises a number of interesting questions.

Abel's Theorem in the Noncommutative Case

We define noncommutative binary forms. Using the typical representation of Hermite we prove the fundamental theorem of algebra and we derive a noncommutative Cardano formula for cubic forms. We define quantized elliptic and hyperelliptic differentials of the first kind. Following Abel we prove Abel's Theorem.Comment: 30 page

Daycare Subsidies and Labor Supply in Sweden

This paper utilizes data from a Swedish household survey for 1984 (The HUS data) in combination with data on public daycare fees and spaces per child by community. We argue that the subsidy rate and availability of spaces determined by the political leaders of the community is to a large extent exogenous to the household. The joint out-of-home childcare and labor supply decision is analyzed by logit choice models. We find that the high quality public daycare in Sweden encourages labor market activity of women with preschoolers even when spouse's income is high and that when spaces are not rationed a lower price encourages use