The boom in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," created a surge in economic activity in certain parts of the country. This surge combined with some of the downsides of fracking made the situation an ideal laboratory to study the effects of a big labor market shock, specifically its impact on house values and mortgage defaults. Chris Cunningham, a research economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, has recently examined how fracking in Pennsylvania affected mortgage markets and what this impact tells us about borrower behavior.