About

Mark J. Garmaise is a Professor of Finance at UCLA Anderson School of Management, holding the Joel Fried Chair in Applied Finance. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with an A.B. in mathematics and philosophy and earned his Ph.D. in finance from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1998. Garmaise has held academic positions at Chicago Booth and UCLA Anderson, where he was appointed as a visiting assistant professor of finance in 2001, promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2008, and became a full professor in 2015. He also served as dean of the full-time MBA program between 2014 and 2015. His research focuses on using empirical data to investigate the effects of asymmetric information and incomplete contracting, particularly in real estate markets and entrepreneurial firms. Garmaise's primary research interests include corporate finance, real estate, entrepreneurship, and banking. He is recognized as an award-winning instructor and a highly respected authority on finance, venture capital, and private equity, with numerous publications in leading journals.

Research topics

• Business
• Finance
• Financial system
• Economics
• Computer Science
• Marketing
• Monetary economics

Selected publications

• What Problem Do Intermediaries Solve? Evidence From Real Estate Markets

  Review of Financial Studies · 2025-10-14

  article

  Abstract We study intermediation in the housing market. Using data from an online platform utilized by real estate agents to generate leads, we identify exogenous intermediary attention arising from the quasi-randomized ordering of potential listings. Greater intermediary attention leads to an increased probability of listing with an agent and selling quickly, and a higher transaction price. The listing and transaction probabilities of neighboring properties decrease in intermediary attention. These results contrast sharply with endogenous correlations and provide causal evidence that intermediaries resolve property-level frictions deriving from search, information, or behavioral considerations but do not mitigate neighborhood-level information asymmetries.

  PublisherDOI

• Collateral Damage: Low-Income Borrowers Depend on Income-Based Lending

  Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis · 2025-11-24

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We use negative durability shocks from vehicle discontinuations to study asset-backed lending and income-based lending (IBL) in auto finance. Discontinuations lead to increased down payments, higher loan-to-value ratios, and larger post-default personal recoveries. These results all indicate that economically disadvantaged consumers are relatively more reliant on unsecured IBL, in stark contrast to corporate financing patterns. Vehicle recoveries on discontinued cars are lower for borrowers who purchase after discontinuations, implying that depreciation is partially borrower-dependent. Our findings suggest that lower-income borrowers, in particular, benefit from technologies that facilitate IBL, such as income monitoring.

  PublisherDOI

• Spending Less after (Seemingly) Bad News

  The Journal of Finance · 2024-04-29 · 11 citations

  article1st author

  ABSTRACT Using high‐frequency spending data, we show that household consumption displays excess sensitivity to salient macroeconomic news, even when the news is not real. When the announced local unemployment rate reaches a 12‐month maximum, local news coverage of unemployment increases and local consumers reduce their discretionary spending by 1.5% relative to consumers in areas with the same macroeconomic conditions. Low‐income households display greater excess sensitivity to salience. The decrease in spending is not later reversed. Households in treated areas act as if they are more financially constrained than those in untreated areas with the same fundamentals.

  PublisherDOI

• Competing for Deal Flow in Local Mortgage Markets

  The Review of Corporate Finance Studies · 2023 · 8 citations

  • Business
  • Monetary economics
  • Financial system

  Abstract The U.S. mortgage market exhibits competitive instability in which some lenders rapidly emerge from the fringe to substantial market shares. Using inferred discontinuities in application acceptance models to generate local lending shocks, we analyze the impact on a lender of a surge in originations by its competitors. We show that the quickest-growing (but not the largest) competitors divert applications and originations from other lenders. Facing a quickly growing competitor, lenders charge higher interest rates, partially because of the increased risk of their loans. Loan performance suffers for other lenders as the quickest-growing competitor’s originations increase. (JEL G21, D40) Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

  PublisherDOI

• Fiscal windfalls and entrepreneurship: fostering entry or promoting incumbents?

  Small Business Economics · 2023-07-29 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We study the impact of government fiscal windfalls on entrepreneurship through an analysis of shocks to transfer payments in Peru. These pure transfers generate higher government spending, and we contrast the impacts on incumbent firms and entrants. Incumbent exits from the financial system are reduced, but previously troubled firms experience deteriorating performance. Increased transfers result in higher rates of firm entry into formal borrowing and superior entrant outcomes. Overall, startups outperform non-startups after heightened transfers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Intermediary Profits in a Time of Scarcity

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Collateral Damage: Human and Physical Capital in Consumer Lending

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• What Problem Do Intermediaries Solve?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022 · 3 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Business
  PublisherDOI

• Replication code and data for "Competing for Deal Flow in Local Mortgage Markets"

  Harvard Dataverse · 2022-12-16

  datasetOpen access

  Replication code and data for "Competing for Deal Flow in Local Mortgage Markets"

  PublisherDOI

• Financial Flexibility: At What Cost?

  Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis · 2020 · 11 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Finance
  • Business
  • Financial system

  Abstract Firms strategically borrow in different locations. Approximately one-quarter of Peruvian companies with operations in multiple areas source their financing from more than one province. Mining windfalls generate finance supply shocks, leading to the provision of more credit at lower average rates, and we show that firms exploit geographic financial flexibility by concentrating their borrowing in booming locations. Firms are less likely to initiate borrowing in new markets when their current borrowing provinces are thriving. The pursuit of flexibility in borrowing markets, however, degrades a firm’s relationships with its existing lenders, thereby heightening its risk of future financial distress.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Tobias J. Moskowitz

  Yale University

  59 shared

• Gabriel Natividad

  University of Piura

  18 shared

• Efraim Benmelech

  Kellogg's (Canada)

  17 shared

• Darren Aiello

  Brigham Young University

  6 shared

• Shimon Kogan

  Brandman University

  5 shared

• Cesare Fracassi

  The University of Texas at Austin

  4 shared

• Bhagwan Chowdhry

  Indian School of Business

  3 shared

• Mark Jansen

  3 shared

Awards & honors

• 2012 Neidorf Decade Teaching Award
• 2011 Full-time MBA Teaching Excellence Award
• 2009 Fully Employed MBA Teaching Excellence Award
• 2007 Citibank Teaching Award for most outstanding MBA teache…
• 2006 Eric and E Juline Excellence in Research Award