The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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Valuation of GNMA Mortgage‐Backed Securities
Published: 06/01/1981 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1981.tb00647.x
KENNETH B. DUNN, JOHN J. McCONNELL
GNMA mortgage‐backed pass‐through securities are supported by pools of amortizing, callable loans. Additionally, mortgagors often prepay their loans when the market interest rate is above the coupon rate of their loans. This paper develops a model for pricing GNMA securities and uses it to examine the impact of the amortization, call, and prepayment features on the prices, risks and expected returns of GNMA's. The amortization and prepayment features each have a positive effect on price, while the call feature has a negative impact. All three features reduce a GNMA security's interest rate risk and, consequently, its expected return.
Call Options, Points, and Dominance Restrictions on Debt Contracts
Published: 12/17/2002 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00190
Kenneth B. Dunn, Chester S. Spatt
We analyze the impact of a contract's length, callability, amortization, and original discount by arbitrage methods. Among instruments that are callable without penalty, longer instruments command a higher interest rate because the borrower possesses the option of repaying relatively more slowly. However, the rate on longer self‐amortizing loans cannot be substantially larger than for shorter ones because the payments decrease with contract length. Bounds on the trade‐off between points and rate for callable debt are characterized using the trade‐off for noncallable debt and the property that the value of the prepayment option increases with the loan's interest rate.
An Analysis of Mortgage Contracting: Prepayment Penalties and the Due‐on‐Sale Clause
Published: 03/01/1985 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb04950.x
KENNETH B. DUNN, CHESTER S. SPATT
The due‐on‐sale clause contained in most conventional home mortgage contracts is equivalent to a prepayment penalty equal to the difference between the face value and market value of the loan. We analyze a bilateral game with asymmetric information and show that the bank demands the full penalty unless the market value of the loan is sufficiently low. In that case, the bank demands a prepayment penalty which is independent of the market value of the loan in order to induce additional prepayments. We also demonstrate, by a risk‐sharing argument, that the due‐on‐sale clause is optimal in some settings, even though it eliminates some beneficial home sales.