Review of Financial Studies Vol. 37 No. 3 2024
Macroprudential Policy, Mortgage Cycles, and Distributional Effects: Evidence from the United Kingdom
Abstract
We analyze the distributional effects of macroprudential policy on mortgage cycles by exploiting the U.K. mortgage register and a 2014 15% limit imposed on lenders’ high loan-to-income (LTI) mortgages. Constrained lenders issue fewer and more expensive high-LTI mortgages, with stronger effects on low-income borrowers. Unconstrained lenders strongly substitute high-LTI loans in local areas with higher constrained lender presence, but not high-LTI loans to low-income borrowers—consistent with adverse selection problems—implying lower overall credit to low-income borrowers. Consistently, policy-affected areas experience lower house price growth postregulation and, following the Brexit referendum (negative aggregate shock), better house price growth and lower mortgage defaults for low-income borrowers.
- DOI
- 10.1093/rfs/hhad070
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 727-760
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref