Agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have historically traded in separate forward markets. We study the consequences of this fragmentation, showing that market liquidity endogenously concentrated in Fannie Mae MBS, leading to higher issuance and trading...

Agency mortgage backed securities (MBS) with diverse characteristics are traded in parallel with individualized contracts in the specified pool (SP) market and with standardized contracts in the to-be-announced (TBA) market. We find that this unique parallel trading environment significantly...

We examine the economic mechanisms that limited arbitrage between the cash and forward markets of agency MBS, and whether asset purchases of the Federal Reserve (Fed) alleviated price dislocations. We find that the cash-forward basis, or the price difference between the cash and forward markets...