About the author

Arnold Kling is President, ASK Real Estate Information Services, Silver Spring, Md. His company developed The Homebuyer's Fair, an on-line service to connect consumers with mortgage lenders and home sellers. He spent seven years with the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), where his accomplishments included design of the automated underwriting system. Prior to Freddie Mac, he spent six years as an economist with the Federal Reserve Board. He has a Ph.D in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His publications include "Imperfect Information and Price Rigidity," (Economic Inquiry, January 1982), "Futures Markets and Transaction Costs," (in Myron Kwast, ed., Financial Futures and Options in the U.S. Economy), and "The Rise in Bank Failures from a Macroeconomic Perspective," (Journal of Financial Services Research, December 1988). He would like to thank Donna Hoffman of Vanderbilt University for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

He may be reached at arnoldsk@us.net.