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Claes Bäckman

@claesbackman.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.1K following 94 posts

Economist working on interest-only mortgages, housing, homeownership, social networks, and stock market participation. The goal is to combine all topics into one paper, but so far they are separate. claesbackman.com

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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Submit full papers or extended abstracts here: safe-frankfurt.de/news-latest/...
safe-frankfurt.de
Submissions: Homeownership 2026
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
📅 Submission deadline: 15 April 2026 📣 Notification: 30 April 2026 📍 Frankfurt School of Finance & Management 2 slots for PhD candidates with limited travel support.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
We invite papers on new theoretical & empirical frameworks that quantify housing market frictions, identify transmission mechanisms, and evaluate how they interact across demand and supply. Topics: households, lenders, developers, landlords, intermediaries, policy.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
📢 Call for Papers: Housing Market Frictions and Access to Homeownership 1st Annual Workshop in Real Estate Finance 24–25 August 2026 · Frankfurt am Main Keynote speakers: • Timothy McQuade (UC Berkeley, NBER) • Andreas Fuster (Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL, CEPR)
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Reposted by Claes Bäckman
Cem Mert Dallı @cemmd.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
I started building this for myself to get better AI feedback on political science research. After seeing @claesbackman.bsky.social’s econ-focused repo, I pushed it further into PoliSci Review: a journal-aware, LaTeX-first skill for political science drafts.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Done well, AI is a feedback machine. In the post, I go through how my workflow has changed, and what kind of prmopts have proven useful for ,e. Please let me know if you have some comments or thoughts. It's fast moving field, claesbackman.substack.com/p/feedback-m...
claesbackman.substack.com
Feedback Machines: Writing and editing research papers with generative AI
Claude Code and Cursor are changing the way we can get feedback on research
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
It used to be difficult to get feedback on your research. The classic way was to ask someone to read it, hoping they would give you a few notes. That is changing. In the post below, I outline some ways I use Cursor and Claude Code to get feedback on my own work directly
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
If you are looking for more research-related guides, I have plenty collected on my website: sites.google.com/view/claesba... Take a look!
sites.google.com
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Other highlights include the importance of having one contribution and how you should learn to ignore (some) feedback, as well as some writing tips.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Read the whole post here. open.substack.com/pub/claesbac...
open.substack.com
A brief personal guide to doing research
Research is really hard. Try to be hard on writing and ideas, not on yourself.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
I'm continuing my Substack blogging career by sharing some tips for doing research. Most important point: try to be hard on writing and ideas, not on yourself.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
That was a much better answer than mine!
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
That’s a good question, I asked that of @alemartinello.com too. I wouldn’t expect much impact on house prices in Denmark from 40-year mortgages, because IO mortgages are available.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
@alemartinello.com also wrote well about this question!
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
But, longer maturities will likely not benefit first-time buyers -- If the benefit of longer maturities is capitalized into house prices, first-time buyers will not have increased access to the housing market
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
The concern with longer maturities is that borrowers may not make informed decisions and may be enticed by lower monthly payments.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Second benefit: higher consumption at points in life when you want to save less — with lower monthly payments you can consume more and save less, which you may want to do if you are either retired or expect to earn a lot in the future
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
First benefits to longer maturities: more portfolio diversification — If you don't amortize, you can save in stocks or more liquid assets. — Maybe all savings shouldn't be concentrated in a single, illiquid asset.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Brief summary: 1️⃣ Longer maturities reduce monthly payments. With a 30-year mortgage and a 6 percent interest rate, the borrower has amortized about 16% of the loan amount after 10 years. With a 50-year mortgage, the borrower has amortized about 4 percent.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Link here: open.substack.com/pub/claesbac...
open.substack.com
50-year mortgages: benefits and costs
While longer maturity contracts may make a lot of sense for individual borrowers, the impact on affordability is limited by changes in house prices.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Longer maturities for mortgages are back in the news. I wrote a Substack post about the benefits of longer maturities, potential concerns of households making mistakes, and what longer maturity mortgages might do for young households and first-time buyers (not much?)
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Link to paper: claesbackman.github.io/Papers/Perso... Link to blog post: safe-frankfurt.de/news-latest/...
claesbackman.github.io
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
💡 Key takeaway: Personal financial advice from close connections improves investment outcomes, highlighting an important distinction from online peer effects in finance.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
A personal relationship means that you probably feel responsible if a risky recommendation goes wrong. This aligns perfectly with what we find in the data: advice-givers emphasize expertise and trustworthiness, and their recommendations lead to better portfolio outcomes.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Our results resonate with me personally, because it's the type of financial advice I would always give when my friends ask. When someone you care about asks for investment advice, you're motivated to recommend sound, diversified strategies.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
🔍 Unlike advice shared on anonymous social media platforms, personal financial advice is based on trust and expertise rather than past returns. Those who provide advice are positively selected on experience and financial knowledge, and they internalize the outcomes of their recommendations.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
📊 We study how financial advice from family and friends affects portfolio outcomes. Using unique brokerage data and survey evidence, we find that personal financial advice is widespread and leads to better portfolio quality—more diversification and a preference for funds over single stocks.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
🎉 Excited to share that our paper "Personal Financial Advice and Portfolio Quality" has been conditionally accepted at the Review of Finance! Many thanks to my co-authors, Olga Balakina, Tobin Hanspal, Andreas Hackethal and Dr. Dominique Lammer!
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Reposted by Claes Bäckman
Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE @safefrankfurt.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
📝New SAFE Working Paper No. 459 "Macroprudential Policies and Homeownership" by @claesbackman.bsky.social 👉Find it via papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... #EconSky #Homeownership #YoHo
Cover of SAFE Working Paper No. 459 "Macroprudential Policies and Homeownership" by Claes Bäckman from October 2025
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Reposted by Claes Bäckman
SSRN @ssrn.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
This paper shows that homophily in #socialnetwork affects stock market participation. Denser, homogenous networks boost participation, especially among wealthier individuals, while social influence is more significant for lower-income groups. Read: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Eller hur!
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Tack!
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
These two mechanisms have different implications for regulation, and we are hoping to explore the exact mechanism more in detail in some follow-up work.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Two broad mechanism for why amortization payments are costly are i) monthly payment targeting, where households focus on a specific monthly mortgage payment rather than minimizing the lifetime cost of the loan and ii) a desire to save in other assets.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Second, we show in the model that the amortization requirement will have a significant impact on household wealth accumulation, matching some recent empirical evidence from the Netherlands.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
We use model simulations to show that introducing interest-only mortgages increase aggregate debt and lifetime interest expenses, especially if amortization payments are viewed as a cost. Importantly, this result applies to wealthy borrowers far from borrowing constraints.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Two important aggregate implications: First, financial innovation in the 1990s and early 2000s generated a wide variety of new mortgage products with lower amortization payments.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
We show that households reduce their borrowing in response to higher amortization payments (see figure), which we attribute to households viewing amortization payments as a cost. We use lifecycle model to explore the mechanisms and to think about the aggregate effects.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
The paper studies how household borrowing responds to the amortization requirement, a Swedish macroprudential policy mandating higher repayments of mortgage debt. You can read a brief non-technical summary here: safe-frankfurt.de/news-latest/...
safe-frankfurt.de
How does the design of debt repayment schedules affect household borrowing?
Many borrowers focus on the initial monthly mortgage payment rather than minimize the life-time costs of the loan, even when they could afford to do otherwise. As a result, new financial products with...
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Beyond excited to say that our paper on amortization payments and borrowing has just been accepted at the Review of Financial Studies! Very grateful to my co-authors, Peter van Santen and Patrick Moran, and to the editor and referees who helped to significantly improve the paper.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Great thread here
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Tilykke!
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 27/12/2024
Thanks for sharing, looks interesting! Out of curiosity, how did you make the website?
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Reposted by Claes Bäckman
Maximilian Kasy @maxkasy.bsky.social · 27/12/2024
I have moved my open textbook on inequality research to a new address: maxkasy.github.io/inequalityresearch (The textbook has not been updated recently, but hopefully is still useful.)
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
It’s certainly true that theory comes after empirics in a lot of cases. I think it’s the pure scale that’s different though.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
This is a really cool (and concerning) paper. Makes me if the equilibrium outcome going to be more gatekeeping and name-checking at journals?
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Link to the paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Mortgage innovation and house price booms
We study how mortgage innovation can cause a housing boom even within a robust regulatory framework and strictly enforced recourse borrowing. Specific…
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
In fact, there are many good reasons to believe that interest-only mortgages help stabilize consumption and housing markets, once they are available.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
A final note on interpreting the results: Our study says that the **introduction** of a new mortgage product that half of Danish homeowners were using 4 years later had a large impact on house prices. This does not mean that interest-only mortgages make house prices more volatile now.
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Claes Bäckman @claesbackman.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Importantly, this implies that mortgage innovation (often about the amortization payment) will impact house price dynamics. We also argue that mortgage innovation also cause house price expectations to rise, which further increases house prices.
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