Rolling the Dice on Foreclosure Prevention: Differences Across Mortgage Servicers in Loan Modifications and Loan Cure Rates

Mortgage servicing has garnered increased attention since the foreclosure crisis. As the interface between borrowers and investors, servicers make the decision to either grant a loan modification or to foreclose. This study examines servicer loan modification practices for a national sample of delinquent subprime loans, and assesses the extent to which those practices are associated with foreclosures. The research reveals significant differences across servicers in loan cure rates, which are related to servicers’ propensity to offer loan modifications and to the level of relief offered to borrowers. The observed differences across servicers and the implications of this heterogeneity for foreclosure prevention underscore the importance of additional data, research, and policies that can increase the uniformity and transparency of servicing practices.     

Koalitionsbildungen zwischen Ämter- und Politikmotivation. Konstruktion einer interdependenten Nutzenfunktion

While newer coalition theories take into account that parties are both office and policy motivated, one problem remains unsolved: the fact that offices (ministries) and policies are inseparably connected with each other. In this essay, we solve this problem by constructing a utility function which considers the interdependency of office distributions and policy outputs. This utility function — which can be used as a basis for further coalition theories — is able to capture the interdependencies also in empirical applications, as we illustrate for the example of the coalition building process after the Bundestag elections of 2002.     

Regierungsbildung im deutschen Fünf-Parteiensystem

Since 2005 all five parliamentary parties in the German Bundestag have coalition potential in the sense that they are able to enter at least one minimal winning coalition, that is a coalition without parties which are not necessary for a majority. Given the number of each party’s members of parliament, the strategic coalition situation is fixed as the set of possible minimal winning coalitions. With certain assumptions (no party will gain an absolute majority, the party system consists of two larger and three smaller parties etc.) two strategic coalition situations are possible as a consequence of the Bundestag election in September 2009: the same as the existing one where only CDU/CSU and SPD can form a two party majority government, and an alternative, predicted currently (February/March 2009) by pollsters, where the largest party, probably the CDU/CSU, can form a two party majority coalition also with the third largest party, probably the FDP. In addition, several three party coalitions are also possible. Which of these coalitions will actually be formed will be determined by the policy distances between the parties which are identified in a two dimensional policy space (economic and social issue positions of parties). The possible minimal winning coalitions are further constrained by the majority coalitions in the so-called cycle set as defined by Schofield.     

Coping with economic integration: Corporatist strategies in Germany and Austria in the 1990s

While Germany is facing the wholesale disorganisation of sectoral collective bargaining, the Austrian social partnership has gained new strength in the 1990s. Comparatively, Austro‐corporatism proved able to undergo a process of skilful adaptation. This divergence in performance poses a puzzle, given Germany's commanding presence both in international markets and in the European Union, and given Austria's traditional hostility to modernisation. This article explains German—Austrian differences in the performance and resilience of corporatist governance in the face of modernisation and market integration in terms of (i) the organisational differences between German and Austrian corporatism (sectoral concentration versus vertical centralisation and little horizontal formalisation); (ii) the long term policy strategies employed by labour unions in either system (co‐determination versus macro‐level policy influence); and (Hi) by the different responses to modernisation chosen by German and Austrian corporatist actors (internal organisational reforms verus becoming modernisation brokers).     

Does the Prior Application of the Field Kit Bullet Hole Testing Kit 3 on a Suspected Bullet Hole Bias the Analysis of Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry?

Forensic ballistics is the study of bullet trajectory and consists of determining gunshot residue (GSR) to identify bullet holes. Among several highly sensitive methods, atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) is employed to analyze GSR in the laboratory. However, it is sometimes necessary to identify bullet holes immediately at a crime scene. The purpose of this examination was to determine whether the use of the field test Bullet Hole Testing Kit 3 (BTK3) on a suspected bullet hole would influence the outcome of AAS‐analysis: Three commonly encountered firearms (Glock17, Tokarev, and Colt) were fired at skin, wood, and cloth. AAS‐analysis was performed with and without previous BTK3 application. The results clearly indicate that there is no significant interaction on the grounds of BTK3 use (BTK3 vs. no‐BTK3 [kit_nokit] [Pb: p = 0.1309; Sb: p = 0.9111], material*kit_nokit [Pb: p = 0.5960; Sb: p = 0.9930], distance*kit_nokit [Pb: p = 0.4014; Sb: p = 0.9184], and firearm type*kit_nokit [Pb: p = 0.9662; Sb: p = 0.9885]); hence, applying this field kit does not falsify later AAS outcomes.     

Validation of the STR DXS7424 and the linkage situation on the X-chromosome

X-linked microsatellite markers have proven to be powerful tools for parentage testing, mainly in deficiency paternity cases when the disputed child is female. However, only a small number of X-linked short tandem repeats (STRs) have been comprehensively described for forensic applications to date.We present sequence and population genetic data of the DXS7424 STR (GDB-G00-577-633) which is a trinucleotide repeat polymorphism representing 12 alleles of 147-180 bp in length. DXS7424 is located at Xq22 and closely linked to DXS101, corresponding to a genetic localisation of 104.9-121 cM from Xp-tel.PCR fragment length measurements and sequencing were carried out using the automatic gene analyser ABI 310 (Applied Biosystems).The population of 764 unrelated Germans checked for this STR exhibited the following features: polymorphism information content (PIC) = 0.780; heterozygosity (Het) = 0.843; mean exclusion chance (MEC = 0.766. Kinship tests revealed a typical X-linked inheritance. In 300 meioses under investigation, mutations were not found. Significant deviations from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) were not established.Linkage studies confirmed closely linkage to DXS101. Additional we found linkage disequilibrium between DXS7424 and DXS101. This requires to use the established haplotype frequencies in kinship testing.