Consumer Finance
Our Consumer Finance Institute researches how people earn, spend, save, and invest, as well as how credit markets and payment systems affect the economy. Our goal is to foster a healthy consumer sector, a stable financial system, and a resilient regional and national economy.
Working Paper
Institutional Investors, Rents, and Neighborhood Change in the Single Family Residential Market
WP 24-13 – Institutional investors that buy and rent out single family homes have continued to increase their presence after the Great Recession.
Labor, Income, Finances, and Expectations (LIFE) Survey
25 Jun ’24
The Labor, Income, Finances, and Expectations (LIFE) Survey collects data on topics related to the Consumer Finance Institute’s mission to better understand how people earn, spend, save, and invest, as well as how credit markets and payment systems affect the economy.
Report
LIFE Survey Report – April 2024
This report is part of a quarterly series that summarizes key observations from the LIFE Survey. In each report, we share data relating to employment status and concerns about working, income expectations, recent financial health and stability, and concerns about the future and personal outlook.
Working Paper
Paying Too Much? Borrower Sophistication and Overpayment in the U.S. Mortgage Market
WP 24-11 – Comparing mortgage rates that borrowers obtain to rates that lenders could offer for the same loan, the authors find that many homeowners significantly overpay for their mortgage, with overpayment varying across borrower types and with market interest rates.
Report
Secured Card Market Update
The secured credit card market has undergone a number of recent changes. In this special report, we update previous research by the Consumer Finance Institute on secured cards using data from the country’s largest financial institutions.
Article
CFI in Focus: Large Bank Credit Card and Mortgage Data: A Tale of Two Portfolios
CFI in Focus – In July 2022, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia began publishing a new quarterly series of large bank credit card and mortgage data, also known as Public Y-14 data. The data come from regulatory reporting that the largest banks in the country are required to submit, based on asset and portfolio thresholds.