Mortgage Reform under the Dodd-Frank Act
Many, if not most, accounts of the financial crisis of 2008 include a prominent role for the U.S. residential mortgage market. While other U.S. property markets, such as commercial and [...]
A shot at regulating securitization
In order to incentivize stronger issuer due diligence effort, European and U.S. authorities are amending securitization-related regulations to force issuers to retain an economic interest in the securitization products they [...]
The Paths to Mortgage Finance Reform and Their Budgetary Implications
The passage of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act in July of 2008 expanded the federal government’s authority to place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship. As exercised, under [...]
House Price Gains and U.S. Household Spending from 2002 to 2006
We examine the effect of rising U.S. house prices on borrowing and spending from 2002 to 2006. There is strong heterogeneity in the marginal propensity to borrow and spend. Households [...]
Mortgage Modification and Strategic Behavior: Evidence from a Legal Settlement with Countrywide
We investigate whether homeowners respond strategically to news of mortgage modification programs. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in modification policy induced by U.S. state government lawsuits against Countrywide Financial Corporation, [...]
The Role of Mortgage Finance in Financial (In)Stability
Empirical research on the causes of financial crises has grown in recent decades. Early work, such as that by Kaminsky and Reinhart, helped establish the link between asset prices and [...]
Housing Collateral, Credit Constraints and Entrepreneurship – Evidence from a Mortgage Reform
We study how a mortgage reform that exogenously increased access to credit had an impact on entrepreneurship, using individual-level micro data from Denmark. The reform allows us to disentangle the [...]
Understanding the cross-section of the U.S. housing bubble: The roles of lending, transaction costs, and rent growth
This paper establishes baseline valuations for housing assets using rent cash flows in 22 regions of the U.S. in a Lucas (1978) framework. The model matches the unconditional averages of [...]
The Resolution of Systemtically Important Financial Institutions: Lessions from Fannie and Freddie
There was perhaps no issue of greater importance to the financial regulatory reforms of 2010 than the resolution, without taxpayer assistance, of large financial institutions. The rescue of firms such [...]
Speculators and Middlemen: The Strategy and Performance of Investors in the Housing Market
Housing market transactions are a matter of public record and thus provide a rare opportunity to analyze the behavior, performance, and strategies of individual investors. Using data for all housing [...]