House prices have increased significantly in Canada over the past decade, driving household debt and residential construction activity to historical highs. Although macro-prudential tightening has slowed the pace of household borrowing in the last few years, house prices have continued to trend...

The rise in house prices – especially in Toronto and Vancouver – has coincided with an increase in the number of homeowners taking on high debt-to-income ratios. This has intensified debate on whether further reforms to mortgage insurance are needed to limit the build-up of risk in housing...

This paper provides novel evidence on the effects of LTV limits on housing choices. I exploit the 2010 and 2012 introduction of LTV limits in Israel using a detailed loan-level dataset. I find that the LTV limits, which were designed to lower borrowers' risk, resulted in borrowers choosing more...

Canada's mortgage insurance risk needs a better backstop fund, according to a new report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Mortgage Insurance as a Macroprudential Tool: Dealing with the Risk of a Housing Market Crash in Canada,” authors Thorsten V. Koeppl and James MacGee...

This study aims to explain causal relationships between the two dramatic cycles observed in the U.S. during the recent financial crisis - the mortgage credit cycle and the home price cycle. In the viewpoint of mortgage lending, the main demand-side driver for the observed credit concentration...

The extension of the subprime mortgage crisis to a global financial meltdown led to calls for fundamental reregulation of the United States financial system. However, that reregulation has been slow in implementation and the proposals under discussion are far from fundamental. One explanation...

We describe a set of six design principles for the reorganization of the U.S. housing finance system and apply them to one model for replacing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that has so far received frequent mention but little sustained analysis – the lender cooperative utility. We discuss the...

The banking sector in the United Kingdom (UK) was deeply affected by the crisis. Bank credit has collapsed reflecting both weak demand and tighter supply. New prudential requirements have improved the resilience of the banking sector and a number of measures were taken to support credit supply....

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, policymakers in the United States and elsewhere have adopted stress testing as a central tool for supervising large, complex, financial institutions and promoting financial stability. Although supervisory stress testing may confer substantial...

This paper examines the role of the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) System in the U.S. housing finance system. This cooperatively owned government-sponsored enterprise has changed markedly over the past 25 years as a result of membership liberalization and the demise of thrift institutions. Today,...