Securitization, Social Distance, and Financial Crises

Because the process of securitizing home mortgages played a critical role in precipitating the recent financial crisis, it is widely agreed that this market must be reformed to prevent future collapses. Most proposals focus on improving the dissemination of information among securitization participants, and on strengthening incentives to discourage excessive risk-taking. This paper argues that because securitization involves the commodification of the lending relationship, it reinforces the type of self-interested behavior that often undermines regulatory efforts. What are needed are structural reforms that encourage moral behavior by narrowing the social distance between lenders and borrowers. This can be accomplished by a return to traditional banking lending, supplemented by the use of covered bonds to loosen credit constraints and to help financial intermediaries manage market risk.