The Agency CMO market, an often overlooked corner of mortgage finance, has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade. This paper explains the rationale behind the construction of Agency CMOs, quantifies risks embedded in Agency CMOs using a traditional and a novel approach, and offers...

This paper addresses the expansion and performance of non-standard mortgage lending products to better understand the impact of such products on borrowers and the financial system. We show that ex ante measured credit risk of these instruments increased and this risk was mispriced. We also...