Housing Affordability and Parental Income Support Staff working paper 2024-28 Jason Allen, Kyra Carmichael, Robert Clark, Shaoteng Li, Nicolas Vincent In many countries, the cost of housing has greatly outpaced income growth, leading to a housing affordability crisis. Leveraging Canadian loan-level data and quasi-experimental variation in payment-to-income constraints, we document an increasing reliance of first-time homebuyers on financial help from their parents, through mortgage co-signing. We show that parental support can effectively relax borrowing constraints—potentially to riskier borrowers. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): D, D6, D64, E, E2, E21, E24, G, G1, G18, G5, G51 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Financial stability and systemic risk, Household and business credit
Inequality in Parental Transfers and Optimal Need-Based Financial Aid Staff working paper 2019-7 Youngmin Park This paper studies optimal need-based financial aid when parental transfers—unobserved by policymakers—vary across and within families of similar means. Using data on U.S. college students, I document substantial inequality in parental transfers, especially among wealthier families. I then analyze how this affects aid design aimed at reducing inefficiencies from borrowing constraints and the aid itself. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers JEL Code(s): D, D1, D14, D6, D61, D64, D8, D82, I, I2, I22, J, J2, J24 Research Theme(s): Financial system, Household and business credit, Monetary policy, Real economy and forecasting, Structural challenges, Demographics and labour supply