Traditional asset-pricing theories assume complete market participation, despite considerable empirical evidence that most investors participate in a limited number of markets. The authors show that once the participation decision is endogenized, market properties change dramatically. First,...

The recent crisis has underlined the importance of the interaction of financial innovations and the housing market. We consider five major innovations relevant to housing finance. These are (i) mortgages; (ii) specialised housing finance institutions; (iii) government interventions in housing...

Economists have believed for a long time that financial systems are fragile in the sense that small shocks can cause serious disruption. Research has focused on phenomena, such as bank runs, which affect the stability of individual institutions. Only recently has there been interest in the...