Yesterday the RBA released what might turn out to be one of the most influential papers ever on Australian mortgages, mortgage stress, arrears and defaults. Titled, “Mortgage-related Financial Difficulties: Evidence from Australian Micro-level Data” the authors Matthew Read, Chris Stewart and Gianni La Cava investigated, “the factors associated with the incidence of mortgage-related financial difficulties in Australia.” The most exciting part of what might otherwise seem a seriously dry topic was the combination of two data sets which look at raw “loan-level data on residential mortgages from two Australian banks”, ... (full story)