Publications

Abstract: We examine the impact of subway expansions on mortgage repayment behavior in Delhi, India. Using administrative data from one of India's largest mortgage lenders, we estimate that households in postal codes with newly opened stations experience a 4.42% decrease in mortgage delinquencies and a 1.38% increase in prepayments. These improvements are attributed to households' reduced reliance on automobiles. Vehicle registration records show a 1.2% decline in the market share of four-wheelers, accompanied by a 6.5% drop in vehicle spending. Financially constrained households benefit the most, reducing purchases of low-quality vehicles and showing the largest improvements in mortgage repayment performance.

Abstract: This paper combines several administrative data and a survey experiment to evaluate the role of lifestyle changes in influencing inflation expectations. Using data from Nielsen’s Homescan Panel, as well as a leading bank in Singapore, we first document that households are upgrading across categories and within categories of goods. We then use a survey experiment to show that price information of better-quality products will lead to higher inflation expectations. The effects on inflation expectations are smaller when the price information of both higher and lower quality products is made available, implying that increasing product variety of lower quality products reduced inflation expectations. Frequent shoppers tend to allocate more weight on higher quality goods when forming inflation expectations. These results suggest that exposure to better quality goods plays an important role in the formation of inflation expectations. Moreover, we map the personal shopping experience with our survey at the group level and find a positive relationship between the increase in quality of supermarket shopping and inflation expectations. Our findings highlight the relationship between personal experience, product variety and inflation expectations.

Abstract: This paper reviews recent advances in the empirical literature of FinTech and household finance. 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, marketplace lending, robo-advising and crowd-funding. Studies suggest that FinTech has positively benefited households by increasing consumption and borrowing. This allows them to smoothen their consumption across time. Furthermore, there is an improvement in their portfolio diversification. Nonetheless, there is also evidence that certain households overconsume and borrow beyond their means. Despite the importance of this topic, there has been a lack of empirical evidence until recently. In this paper, we take stock of the empirical evidence in the literature through the lens of household finance