Sumit Agarwal

National University of Singapore | NUS · Department of Finance

Although the literature has studied the impact of social ties on credit markets, the possibility of social relations causing contagion remains unexplored. We study the Indian caste system and the group loan structure, where members screen and monitor each other. Using loan‐month level data provided by a nonbanking lender, we find that shocks take t...

We study how consumer spending responds to digital payments, using the differential switch to digital payments across consumers induced by the sudden 2016 Indian Demonetization for identification. Digital payment use rose by 2.94 percentage points and monthly spending increased by 2.38% for an additional 10 percentage points in prior cash dependenc...

Working at home benefits entrepreneurs by lowering fixed costs and allowing them to engage in joint market and household production. We evaluate a large-scale reform in Singapore, the Home Office Scheme, that allowed business creation at one’s residential property and study whether home-based entrepreneurship spurs entrepreneurial activities. The d...

Cybersecurity breaches pose a substantial concern in the digital era. We investigate how customers respond to multiple unexpected data breaches of their information in India. Difference-in-differences estimates show that digital payments declined by 9% relative to cash payments immediately after an unexpected data breach in a food delivery platform...

This paper theoretically and empirically studies the interaction of search and application approval in credit markets. Risky borrowers internalize the probability that their application is rejected and behave as if they had high search costs. Thus, “overpayment” may be a poor proxy for consumer sophistication since it partly represents rational sea...

During the first half of 2020, the difference in savings from mortgage refinancing between high- and low-income borrowers was 10 times higher than before. This was the result of two factors: high-income borrowers increased their refinancing activity more than otherwise comparable low-income borrowers and, conditional on refinancing, they captured s...

Based on a representative sample of consumer financial transaction data, this paper studies the consumption and savings response to a 2015 permanent increase in the marginal income tax of the high-income taxpayers. Using difference-in-differences regressions, controlling for individual and time fixed effects, we show robust results that the affecte...

Using account-level credit card data from a large Turkish bank, we study the impact of a unique credit card policy that increases minimum payment on consumption and debt repayment. We show that the policy reduces credit card spending and debt, boosts existing debt repayment, and reduces credit card delinquency. The credit card debt of affected cons...

This paper explores the different pricing strategies of lenders who originate both government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) and non-GSE loans. We find that conditional on loan and borrower characteristics and some observable local economic factors, mortgage rates on GSE loans vary significantly across regions. However, we observe no sizable regional v...

Singapore uses public media campaigns to motivate public housing residents to conserve energy as part of its strategies to achieve sustainable energy goals. Using the energy conservation campaign conducted in selected housing estates in Singapore in January 2016, we ran a natural experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of the public campaign in nu...

We examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) that relaxed housing equity constraints by extending government credit guarantee on insufficiently collateralized refinanced mortgages. Difference-in-difference tests based on program elig...

Motivated by direct evidence that households tend to purchase higher quality goods over time (consumption upgrading), we use a survey experiment to study the relationship between consumption upgrading and households’ beliefs about inflation. We find that providing price information on better-quality products will lead to higher inflation expectatio...

We study the role of ride-hailing surge factors on the allocative efficiency of taxis by combining a reduced-form estimation with structural analyses using machine-learning-based demand predictions. Where other research study the effect of entry on incumbent taxis, we use higher frequency granular data to study how location-time-specific surge fact...

Exploiting debit card and credit card transactions of a large, representative sample of consumers from a leading bank in Singapore, we examine the consumption response to an anticipated, transitory price shock generated by the nation-wide annual sale event. Consumers significantly increase their spending during the sale event. More importantly, we...

Using a representative sample of credit card holders from a leading Chinese commercial bank, we investigate how consumers respond to an unexpected interest rate decrease that automatically reduces interest expenses for all mortgage borrowers in the country and thereby generates significant positive disposable-income shocks. Our difference-in-differ...

We examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP). The policy allowed intermediaries to refinance insufficiently collateralized mortgages by extending government credit guarantee on such loans. We use proprietary loan-level panel data f...

We extend the debate on the benefits to increasing the minimum wage by examining the impact on expenses associated with shelter, a previously unexplored area. Our analysis uses a unique data set that tracks household rental payments. Increases in state minimum wages significantly reduce the incidence of renters defaulting on their lease contracts b...

We study the impact of the risk retention rule - requiring 5% of underlying credit risk for commercial mortgage backed securities - on commercial real estate markets. Since the primary objective of this rule is for the deal sponsors to have skin in the game, we expect that underwriting standards should tighten following the implementation of the ru...

Using a large, representative sample of credit and debit card transactions in Singapore, this paper studies the consumption response of individuals whose same-building neighbors experienced personal bankruptcy. The unique bankruptcy rules in Singapore suggest liquidity shocks drive personal bankruptcy decisions, leading to a substantial drop in con...

This paper proposes the use of a semiparametric model based on a locally weighted approach that controls for dynamic agglomeration and diffusion effects in constructing localized housing price indices. Based on residential transaction records in Singapore, we create a three‐dimensional interactive heat maps that allow for better measurement and vis...

Using transaction-level credit-card spending from a large U.S. financial institution, we show that disaggregated sales provide accurate and persistent signals of customer demand relevant to a firm’s stock pricing. After controlling for earnings and sales surprises, one interquintile increase in the adjusted customer spending during a firm’s fiscal...

This paper examines the long-term effects of birth cohort size on life outcomes. Using administrative data from Singapore, we study the outcomes of large birth cohorts created by the Chinese superstitious practice of zodiac birth timing, where parents prefer to give birth in the year of the Dragon. This practice is followed exclusively by the Chine...

This paper proposes the use of a semiparametric model based on a locally weighted approach that controls for dynamic agglomeration and diffusion effects in constructing localized housing price indices. Based on residential transaction records in Singapore, we create a three-dimensional interactive heat maps that allow for better measurement and vis...

Although the impact of social ties on credit markets has been studied, the possibility of contagion through social ties remains unexplored. Examining the Indian caste system and the group loan structure, we find that social ties could turn shocks into a contagion within credit markets: a drought that directly impacts farmers leads to a higher defaul...

Using a large, representative sample of high-frequency credit card transactions in the United States, this paper examines the causal effect of sunshine-induced mood on contemporaneous household credit card spending. We document a 0.3 percent increase in credit card spending in response to a one-unit increase in the same-day local abnormal sunshine....

This study employs an administrative dataset containing high-frequency transaction records for approximately four million smart transit cards used by Singaporean residents in order to study the travel preferences of public transport commuters. We examine the impact of service attributes, including travel time, reliability and travel cost, on commut...

Financial exclusion prevents the poor and disadvantaged from accessing formal financial systems . The unbanked and underbanked use alternate channels to meet their financial needs but face exorbitant pricing. The inability of banks to respond to the needs of the unbanked and underbanked because of government regulations and legacy IT systems, and i...

Households face challenges when making investment decisions. They must plan over a lifetime, not just a single short period. They must consider not only risks to their wealth but also the rate of return at which their wealth can be reinvested. Empirical evidence shows that households make investment decisions that are contrary to what is prescribed...

The payment function has to do with the transfer of money for the purchase of goods and services. The act of paying evokes positive and negative emotions. Theories that attempt to explain the psychology of consumer payment behavior include acquisition and transaction utility, buffering hypothesis, payment transparency hypothesis and sunk cost falla...

A house is a highly leveraged and illiquid asset, accounting for a significant fraction of a household’s portfolio and funded by a long-term mortgage. In a perfectly competitive economy, mortgage market economics would be a matter of indifference. However, in the presence of market imperfections, households have to make important decisions regardin...

The health and financial well-being of households are threatened by systemic shocks such as natural disasters and economic crisis and idiosyncratic shocks such as job losses, accidents, disabilities, illnesses and thefts. Measures to address systemic shocks include better macroeconomic management, disaster risk management, flood insurance, rainfall...

According to the Keynesian consumption function, household spending is wholly determined by current income. Permanent Income Hypothesis and the Life Cycle Hypothesis, however, theorize that households plan their consumption based on long-term income expectations. These standard consumption models have been augmented to include imperfections in the...

Households save for various reasons including the intertemporal substitution motive, life cycle motive, precautionary motive, independence motive, improvement motive, enterprise motive, bequest motive, avarice motive and the down payment motive. Notwithstanding the motives, there are factors that affect household saving behavior to varying degrees....

We show that consumers spend 15% more per day in the first week following the receipt of a credit card statement than in the days just prior to the statement. This increase in spending includes both an increase in the likelihood that they use the credit card in the first weeks following their statement and an increase in transaction amount on days...

The most popular forms of household debt are mortgages, student loans, vehicle loans and credit card loans. Households borrow because of temporary fluctuations in income, investment in closely held businesses, consumption smoothing, behavioral biases and investment in illiquid assets. Overleveraging can result in psychological stress, relationship...

Purpose This paper reviews recent advances in the empirical literature of FinTech and household finance. Design/methodology/approach We survey the effects of FinTech on three different aspects of household finance: payments, lending and portfolio decisions. Specifically, we examine the impact of digital payments, mobile money, FinTech lending, mar...

This paper examines the effect of a regulatory action (the Home Valuation Code of Conduct) that was designed to reduce the incidence of inflated collateral valuations. We identify the impact of the regulation using a difference-in-difference identification strategy. Our baseline results confirm that the regulation reduced inflated valuations in ref...

Using establishment-level data, we examine the impact of the Indian government’s employment guarantee program on labor and firm behavior. We exploit the staggered implementation of the program for identification and find that the program led to a 10% reduction in the permanent workforce in firms. Firms responded to the adverse labor-supply shock by...

Using a comprehensive sample of credit card data from a leading Chinese bank, we show that government bureaucrats receive 16% higher credit lines than non-bureaucrats with similar income and demographics, but their accounts experience a significantly higher likelihood of delinquency and debt forgiveness. Regions associated with greater credit provi...

This paper explores the effects of mandatory third-party review of mortgage contracts on consumer choice. The study is based on a legislative pilot carried out in Illinois in 2006, under which mortgage counseling was triggered by applicant credit scores or by their choice of “risky mortgages.” Low-credit score applicants for whom counselor review w...

In this paper, we employ a unique tax experiment and dataset in a highly salient tax rate environment to examine consumer response to complex and uncertain tax reforms. Tax reforms raise some fundamental questions in public finance: How does consumption respond to tax change? How is the tax burden distributed among the stakeholders? More importantl...

We examine whether relative income differences among peers can generate financial distress. Using lottery winnings as plausibly exogenous variations in the relative income of peers, we find that the dollar magnitude of a lottery win of one neighbor increases subsequent borrowing and bankruptcies among other neighbors. We also examine which factors...

Household finance studies is a relatively recent field, exploring a growing understanding of how households make financial decisions relating to the functions of consumption, payment, risk management, borrowing and investing; how institutions provide goods and services to satisfy these financial functions of households; and how interventions by fir...

Experts from economics, finance, law, policy, and banking discuss the design and implementation of a future capital market union in Europe. The plan for further development of Europe's economic and monetary union foresees the creation of a capital market union (CMU)—a single market for capital in the entire Eurozone. The need for citizens and firms...

This paper investigates the role of ethnic matching between buyers and sellers in Singapore’s public housing market. We find that sellers sell homes in blocks with a high concentration of their own (other) ethnic group(s) at significant premiums (discounts). Chinese sellers earn 1.7% higher premiums when selling homes to Chinese buyers in high Chin...

This paper exploits an administrative regulation in Singapore that allows individuals to withdraw between 10% and 30% of their pension savings at age 55. We find a large and highly significant increase in individuals’ bank account balances within the first month of turning 55, which declines by about a third by the end of 12 months. Consumers use t...

We use a large housing transaction data set in Singapore to study whether real estate agents use information advantages to buy houses at bargain prices. Agents bought their own houses at prices that are 2.54% lower than comparable houses bought by other buyers. Consistent with information asymmetries, agent buyers have more information advantages i...

Using mobile wallet and card transaction data from a leading Singapore bank, this paper studies the effect of a mobile wallet payment technology introduction in 2017 on business growth. We find that mobile wallet usage doubled after the new technology introduction, and the improved payment efficiency generated a significant spillover effect. Small...

This paper adopts a novel approach to examine the roles of gender difference and intra-household economic power in mortgage signing order. We develop an “economic power” index based on relative economic power within the same-sex couple households. We then use this measure along with gender identity and other factors to explain signing order in diff...

U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee considered many important banking reforms in 2009-2010 including the Dodd-Frank Act. We show that during this period, the foreclosure starts on delinquent mortgages were delayed in the districts of committee members even though there was no difference in delinquency rates between committee...

In this paper we examine the incentives for lenders to steer borrowers into piggyback loan structures to circumvent regulations requiring primary mortgage insurance (PMI) for loans with loan to value ratios (LTV) above 80%. Our empirical analysis focuses on propensity score matched portfolios of piggyback and single-lien loans having the same combi...

The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee considered many important banking reforms in 2009 to 2010. We show that during this period, foreclosure starts on delinquent mortgages were delayed in the districts of committee members although there was no difference in delinquency rates between committee and noncommittee districts. I...

When borrowers are delinquent, senior debtholders prefer liquidation whereas junior debtholders prefer to maintain their option value by delaying resolution or modifying the loan. In the mortgage market, a conflict of interest (holdup) arises when servicers of securitized senior liens are also the owners of the junior liens on the same property. We...

This paper shows how liquidity infusions affect loan modification in the mortgage market. The design of pooling and servicing agreements leads mortgage servicers to prefer foreclosure over modification when they are liquidity constrained. Therefore, a positive liquidity shock is expected to boost modification rates. Using a residential mortgage dat...

We study a controlled experiment in which a bank's loan officers were incentivized based on originated loan volume to encourage prospecting for new business. While treated loan officers did attract new applications, both extensive and intensive margins of loan origination expanded (+ 31% new loans; loan size + 15%). We find that loan officers gave...

Using a unique panel dataset that contains comprehensive information about the relationships between a large bank and its credit card customers, we show that relationship accounts exhibit lower probabilities of default and attrition, and have higher utilization rates, than non-relationship accounts. Dynamic information about changes in the behavior...