This paper constructs a reduced-form credit risk model of mortgage default. The data used is of privately-securitized subprime ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages), originated between 1997 and 2008, and observed between 2000 and 2009. The period studied thus encompasses the beginning of the subprime...

Because of impersonal securitization in the secondary market, the ultimate investors in a mortgage have only a limited amount of information about the borrower's characteristics. This creates an asymmetric information problem because of hidden knowledge on the part of the primary lenders, who...

Because of impersonal securitization in the secondary market, the ultimate investors in a mortgage have only a limited amount of information about the borrower's characteristics. This creates an asymmetric information problem because of hidden knowledge on the part of the primary lenders, who...

Using 35,437 pairs of first and second mortgages matched from within a much larger set of subprime mortgages, this paper tracks and describes the tendency for either one of the mortgages to enter default, as well as the tendency for either the one or the other mortgage to ever return to being...