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Via Holly Petraeus, CFPB – “It’s no secret that the housing crisis in recent years was particularly hard on military families. Servicemembers and their spouses at installations around the country, and even abroad, cited problems with mortgages as some of their most serious financial challenges. But now, the CFPB has written new mortgage rules that can …
SERVICEMEMBERS CIVIL RELIEF ACT – Information on Mortgage Protections and Related Education Efforts, GAO-14-221, Jan 28, 2014: “The number of servicemembers with mortgages eligible for Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) mortgage protections is unknown because servicers have not collected this information in a comprehensive manner. Based on the limited and nongeneralizeable information that GAO obtained from the …
U.S. PIRG: “The cost of college textbooks has skyrocketed in recent years. To students and families already struggling to afford high tuition and fees, an additional $1,200 per year on books and supplies can be the breaking point. As publishers keep costs high by pumping out new editions and selling books bundled with software, students are …
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had rebounded in December, increased again in January. “The Index now stands at 80.7 (1985=100), up from 77.5 in December. The Present Situation Index increased to 79.1 from 75.3. The Expectations Index increased to 81.8 from 79.0 last month. The monthly Consumer Confidence Survey®, based on a probability-design random sample, is …
Winter Shows No Signs of Cooling in Home Prices According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices: “Data through November 2013, released today by S&P Dow Jones Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, showed that the 10-City and 20-City Composites increased 13.8% and 13.7% year-over-year. Dallas posted its …
Market Efficiency and the U.S. Market for Sulfur Dioxide Allowances – Working Paper Series, Congressional Budget Office, 2014-01, by Claudia Hitaj and Andrew Stocking. January 27, 2014. “Focusing on the U.S. sulfur dioxide (SO2) allowance market from its inception (in 1994) to 2009, we model allowance prices to determine the influence of market fundamentals—such as prices …
The Economics of Online Postsecondary Education: MOOCs, Nonselective Education, and Highly Selective Education, Caroline M. Hoxby, NBER Working Paper No. 19816. January 2014 “I consider how online postsecondary education, including massive open online courses (MOOCs), might fit into economically sustainable models of postsecondary education. I contrast nonselective postsecondary education (NSPE)in which institutions sell fairly standardized educational services in return for up-front payments …
Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002): A First Look at 2002 High School Sophomores 10 Years Later. U.S. Department of Education – Institute of Education Sciences. January 2014. “This First Look presents findings from the third, and final, follow-up survey of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002). ELS:2002 provides a wealth of information from multiple sources (tested …
Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States. Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez. NBER Working Paper No. 19843, January 2014. “We use administrative records on the incomes of more than 40 million children and their parents to describe three features of intergenerational mobility in the United States. First, …
“The new national survey by the Pew Research Center and USA TODAY, conducted Jan. 15-19 among 1,504 adults, finds that 65% believe the gap between the rich and everyone else has increased in the last 10 years. This view is shared by majorities across nearly all groups in the public, including 68% of Democrats and 61% …
Providing Non-Bank Financial Services for the Underserved, White Papers – RARC-WP-14-007 – 01/27/2014 “One in four U.S. households lives at least partially outside the financial mainstream — without bank accounts or using costly services like payday lenders. The average underserved household spends $2,412 each year just on interest and fees for alternative financial services. Postal financial services may appeal to many customers who feel abandoned by major financial institutions. Postal organizations have …
“Wealthy elites have co-opted political power to rig the rules of the economic game, undermining democracy and creating a world where the 85 richest people own the wealth of half of the world’s population, worldwide development organization Oxfam warns in a report published today. Working For the Few, published ahead of this week’s World Economic …
