During the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2008, previously profitable loans to subprime borrowers turned sour and investments thought to be as safe as government debt sustained severe and unexpected losses. The crisis reconfigured the US financial services industry and helped spark the worst...

A mortgage is an exchange of a collection of rights between a borrower and a lender. In this article, we describe those rights and explain both their economic logic and their implications for economic analysis and policy. We briefly discuss the medieval origins of the American mortgage contract...