Gender Differences and Inter-Household Economic Power in Mortgage Signing Order

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 different-gender couples. Our results suggest that, while pure economic power explains much of the observed signing order, gender difference plays an important role. Exploit regional variation reveals that gender difference in signing order is greater in states with a larger gender wage gap and red states whose residents predominantly vote for the Republican.

Agarwal, Sumit and Green, Richard K. and Rosenblatt, Eric and Yao, Vincent and Zhang, Jian, Gender Difference and Intra-Household Economic Power in Mortgage Signing Order (November 11, 2017). Journal of Financial Intermediation, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2616756 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2616756