This paper presents evidence on the impact of the housing bubble, flood of high risk mortgage lending, and subsequent meltdown in homeownership. We point to agency and information problems in the mortgage origination and securitization market; incomplete risk transfer; and underassessment of...

This paper argues that during the housing bubble, housing finance markets failed to price risk correctly because of information failure caused by the complexity and heterogeneity of private-label mortgage-backed securities and structured finance products. Addressing the informational problems...

This paper establishes a theoretical and empirical link between the use of aggressive mortgage lending instruments, such as interest only, negative amortization or subprime, mortgages, and the underlying house prices. Such instruments, which come into existence through innovation or financial...

This paper estimates the direct and spillover effects of zoning controls along with other growth restrictions on housing prices. Theory leads us to expect a positive effect of land-use restrictions on the price of developed land and a negative effect on the price of undeveloped land. We consider...

This paper utilizes micro data to directly quantify the impact of mortgage underwriting criteria on individual homeownership propensities. To determine whether a family is constrained by these criteria, the optimal home purchase price is estimated. The results indicate that wealth and income...

Over the past decade, the growth of the secondary market has produced an increased differentiation in the pricing of available capital for mortgage lending, as well as in the brokers and lenders involved in the distribution of mortgages. A major outcome of this shift is the emergence of subprime...

This paper establishes a theoretical and empirical link between the use of aggressive mortgage lending instruments, such as interest only, negative amortization or subprime, mortgages, and the underlying house prices. Such instruments, which come into existence through innovation or financial...

The present period of financial instability is also likely to become known as the end of an era, an era of economic calm and of policy consensus on how to maintain market stability. After World War II, the federal government operated on the Keynesian principles that the right mix of spending,...

This article describes the causes of the boom and bust in the U.S. housing market, which brought down not just the U.S. financial system but the global economy. How did this vicious cycle begin? How did home prices appreciate so far and so fast? Why did rational investors not recognize and stop...

With private-label mortgage-backed securities (MBS), investors bore default risk; while this risk should have been priced, as systemic risk grew, the pricing of risk did not increase. This paper attempts to explain why this happened. We point to market institutions' incentive misalignments that...