Jinho Kim

Mortgage refinancing responses to interest-rate declines differ sharply across income groups: lower-income borrowers refinance less often and with longer delays, leaving substantial unrealized savings. I show that monetary-policy easing generates a refinancing response concentrated among higher-income borrowers, and develop a structural model in which income-dependent inattention and hassle costs are necessary to match the data. Counterfactual attention interventions strengthen the consumption response to rate cuts, with most of the additional gains accruing to lower-income households.

Why does the same housing-demand shock generate larger booms in some places than in others? This paper shows that demographic age structure helps explain housing-boom vulnerability. Evidence from OECD countries, U.S. counties, and HMDA mortgage data suggests that younger economies are more boom-prone, a pattern rationalized by a housing OLG model in which more households are near the life-cycle tenure-adjustment margin.

This project exploits cross-regional heterogeneity in mortgage-ownership ratios to study how mortgage debt shapes consumption responses to monetary policy and housing wealth. Regions with higher mortgage exposure respond more strongly to interest rate cuts but less to housing wealth gains, consistent with liquidity constraints among wealthy hand-to-mouth households.

Discussion slides for “New Results on the Disparities between Same-Sex and Different-Sex Couples in the Home Mortgage Market” by Nir Eilam and Yeonjoon Lee, presented at the WEAI 101st Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado.

Discussion slides for “The Value of Mortgage Choice” by Boutros, Clara, and Kartashova (2024), presented at the SFA Annual Meeting 2025 in Orlando, Florida.