The growth of securitization made it easier for banks to sell home mortgage loans that they originated. I explore how mortgage sales affected banks in the years leading up to the financial crisis that began in 2007 and how their pre-crisis mortgage sales affected banks during the crisis. Loan...

Remarks at the Institute of International Bankers Annual Washington Conference, Washington, D.C., March 7, 2011 ; "I argued against the $600 billion extension [buying U.S. Treasuries] the voters on the FOMC approved last November. And I remain doubtful enough as to its efficacy that if at any...

There has been much talk about a disappointing recovery in the wake of the Great Recession—that this time it is much slower. Comparing features of this recovery to past recoveries casts some doubt on that view. The comparison is made using a scaled-down version of the sophisticated and...

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of central bank purchases of government bonds by investigating the following three questions: Under what conditions are these purchases socially desirable, what incentive problems do they mitigate, and how large are these...

In times of financial distress, central banks provide unlimited liquidity to avoid fire sales. In response, banks raise their demand for collateral assets, and the short-term scarcity of collateral securities leads to higher prices, the Fire Buy premium. To avoid collateral scarcity, central...