The authors examine the connection between government mortgage programs and economic outcomes during and after the financial crisis. They find a strong correlation between counties that participated more heavily in Federal Housing Administration (FHA)/Veterans Affairs (VA) and...

Before 2008, the government's “implicit guarantee” of the securities issued by the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led to practices by these institutions that threatened financial stability. In 2008, the Federal Housing Finance Agency placed these GSEs into...

The authors estimate a sample selection model over three distinct regulatory "regimes" when the treatment of bank bondholders (in the event of bank failures) differed substantially. They then estimate their selection model to test the strength of bond market discipline over these three...