Mortgage overage pricing is little understood by consumers and has received little academic scrutiny. We consider the impact of the market power of individual loan officers on overages paid by borrowers, particularly minorities. We include numerous borrower and lender characteristics unavailable previously. We find that minorities who purchase homes pay larger overages than whites, but our evidence suggests that this traces to differences in the pools of borrowers rather than to racial discrimination. We conclude that a more effective way to eliminate racial differences in overages is to increase minorities’ ability to bargain rather than to enact additional anti-discrimination laws.

We study the determinants of bank growth in a two-stage logistic regression model. We first compare banks that branch, Bank Acquire, or Product Expand with banks that do not grow externally. Banks that are federally chartered, in states with higher income growth, and with higher labor prices are less likely to grow externally. Larger banks are more likely to grow externally. In the second stage, we study determinants of growth activity for banks that expand products, branch, or acquire other banks. Depending on the time period, bank structure, regulatory environment, performance, and balance sheet characteristics determine bank growth choices.