published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Economics, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Bus)--Unitec New Zealand, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-79).

The thesis is focused on the analysis of the macroeconomic relationships of the growth of indebtedness of Czech households in 2000 - 2015. The aim of the diploma thesis is to find the main causes of household indebtedness growth and to identify the influence of this process on selected macroeconomic variables. The theoretical part of the diploma thesis deals with money creation, monetary and fiscal policy, the role of money in economic cycles and economic theories of household consumption. The practical part focuses more closely on debt development, its structure and sociodemographic structure of indebted households. The thesis describes the causes of household indebtedness growth, impacts on selected macroeconomic variables, ability of households to meet their financial obligations and, last but not least, international comparisons with selected EU countries. The diploma thesis brings a comprehensive view of the debt of Czech households in the period 2000 - 2015. At the end of the thesis, it explains the main causes and consequences of the growing indebtedness of households, together with the international comparison and the sociodemographic characteristic of indebted households.

This Master's thesis is primarily focused on the analysis of mass media communication on the market of mortgage loans in the period between 2010 and 2015. In the theoretical part research was done summarising existing knowledge about the development of the Czech mortgage market and mass media market in the mentioned period. In the second part focus is shifted to the methodology of the research, in particular to the data-mining method CRISP-DM. Described here are tools of descriptive statistics, that were used in the research, and also methods of regress, correlation and cluster analysis are explained. The empirical part of the thesis looks into the trends in mass media communication of mortgage loans, trying to expose relevant influences and identify reciprocal connections between mass media communication of the mortgage lenders, their financial strength and their duration of existence. In the conclusion the results of the analysis are summarised and recommendations are drawn for their implementation in practice.

The aim of this work attempts to identify some causes of the current trend in household debt. The work presents its own model of debt financing. Subjects maximize their discounted utility, which depends on its consumption and debt financing in different time periods. Consumer and mortgage loans are analysed. Model simulates an inefficiency of any type of consumer debt financing, and allows benefits in certain situations in mortgage debt financing. These results are discussed in terms of model assumptions, and also from the perspective of some behavioral approaches to indebtedness. The findings are put into comparison with the current trend in the debt financing and identify the reasons, why the model is or is not equivalent to today's economic trends.

On October 3rd, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau changed the presentation of information within mortgage disclosures such that monthly payments and upfront costs are more salient. Using proprietary bank account data, I document that after closing on the mortgage, treated consumers receiving the re-designed disclosures log in more into their liquid checking accounts, spend less on debit cards and cash, but spend more on credit cards. I argue that the more salient disclosures caused consumers to prioritize having funds to make monthly obligations. Accordingly, I find that liquidity constrained consumers reallocate more of their debit card and cash spending to credit card spending. Other channels related to underestimation of mortgage costs, financial advice, and regulatory enforcement cannot fully explain the results. The reform benefits consumers as they do not accumulate credit card charges despite making more timely mortgage payments. The results collectively demonstrate that modifying information presentation is a low-cost way to change consumers’ behaviors.

In the wake of Emancipation, African Americans viewed land and home ownership as an essential element of their "citizenship rights." However, efforts to achieve such ownership in the postbellum era were often stymied by credit discrimination as many blacks were ensnared in a system of debt peonage. Despite such obstacles, African Americans achieved land ownership in surprising numbers in rural and urban areas in the South. At the beginning of the twentieth century, millions of African Americans began leaving the South for the North with continued aspirations of homeownership. As blacks sought to fulfill the American Dream, many financial institutions refused to provide loans to them or provided loans with onerous terms and conditions. In response, a small group of African American leaders, working in conjunction with a number of the major black churches in Philadelphia, built the largest network of race financial institutions in the United States to provide credit to black home buyers. The leaders recognized economic development through homeownership as an integral piece of the larger civil rights movement dedicated to challenging white supremacy. The race financial institutions successfully provided hundreds of mortgage loans to African Americans and were a key reason for the tripling of the black homeownership rate in Philadelphia from 1910 to 1930. During the Great Depression, the federal government revolutionized home financing with a series of programs that greatly expanded homeownership. However, the programs, such as those of the Federal Housing Administration, resulted in blacks being subjected to redlining and denied access to credit. In response, blacks were often forced to turn to alternative sources of high cost credit to finance the purchase of homes. Nevertheless, as a new wave of African American migrants arrived to Philadelphia during post-World War II era, blacks fought to purchase homes and two major race financial institutions continued to provide mortgage loans to African Americans in Philadelphia. The resolve of blacks to overcome credit discrimination to purchase homes through the creation of race financial institutions was a key part of the broader struggle for civil rights in the United States. / History

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / The use of leading indicators provides a valuable method to predict changes in macro-economic variables. However, the accuracy of the various models using leading indicators is a topic of constant debate. This study aimed to identify whether leading indicator models predicting residential house price changes performed as well during the recent global financial crisis (fourth quarter 2007 to second quarter 2012) as during the period directly before the crisis. Several potential drivers of the South African property market were identified with the help of previous studies on this topic. Following that, a quantitative analysis was done and single leading indicator models were built using regression analysis to evaluate the importance of each independent variable. This information was used to create a composite leading index for the South African housing market. The accuracy of these models were then compared to predict the changes in house prices during the period preceding the recent global economic crisis.It was found that the ability of these leading indicator models to predict house price changes during the recent global economic crisis decreased significantly.

published_or_final_version / Law / Master / Master of Laws