Secondary markets for credit are widely believed to improve efficiency and increase access to credit. In part, this is because of their greater ability to manage risk. However, the degree to which secondary markets expand access to credit is virtually unknown. Using the mortgage market as an...

In the last few decades, U.S. financial markets have witnessed a dramatic increase in the sophistication and size of the secondary market for mortgage loans. By 2002, close to 90 percent of conforming mortgage loan originations in the U.S. were sold into the secondary market. Although there is...

Housing policy under the Clinton and Bush Administrations has sought to boost homeownership while also narrowing racial gaps in owner-occupancy rates. Against that backdrop, homeownership rose sharply in the 1990s, but white-minority gaps remain in excess of 25 percentage points. We analyze...

In recent years, much of U.S. federal housing policy has focused on two complimentary goals: to increase U.S. homeownership rates while also narrowing enormous and longstanding racial gaps in homeownership. Against this backdrop, the U.S. homeownership rate rose to historic highs in the 1990s,...