The recent real estate bubble was fuelled by non-risk adjusted lending policies, low interest rates and complex finance vehicles. Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) played a crucial role in the crisis. These vehicles were praised as liquid capital market instruments that allowed mortgage lenders...

Understanding the evolution of real-time beliefs about house price appreciation is central to understanding the U.S. housing crisis. At the peak of the recent housing cycle, both borrowers and lenders appealed to optimistic house price forecasts to justify undertaking increasingly risky loans....