Phasing out the GSEs

We develop a new model of the mortgage market that emphasizes the role of the financial sector and the government. Risk tolerant savers act as intermediaries between risk averse depositors and impatient borrowers. Both borrowers and intermediaries can default. The government provides both mortgage guarantees and deposit insurance. Underpriced government mortgage guarantees lead to more and riskier mortgage originations and higher financial sector leverage. Mortgage crises occasionally turn into financial crises and government bailouts due to the fragility of the intermediaries’ balance sheets. Foreclosure crises beget fiscal uncertainty, further disrupting the optimal allocation of risk in the economy. Increasing the price of the mortgage guarantee “crowds in” the private sector, reduces financial fragility, leads to fewer but safer mortgages, lowers house prices, and raises mortgage and risk-free interest rates. Due to a more robust financial sector and less fiscal uncertainty, consumption smoothing improves and foreclosure rates fall. While borrowers are nearly indifferent to a world with or without mortgage guarantees, savers are substantially better off. While aggregate welfare increases, so does wealth inequality.     

The Relationships Between Mortgage Rates and Capital-Market Rates Under Alternative Market Conditions

Mortgage interest rates have become more integrated with other capital-market interest rates over recent decades, apparently as a result of the deregulation of financial markets. The link is both imperfect and time-varying. Mortgage rates during some time periods appear to be sticky with respect to their adjustment to changes in capital-market rates. We examine the relationship between weekly conventional mortgage rates and the interest rates on treasury and corporate securities under differing market conditions. We draw three conclusions based on the analysis. First, deregulation changed the link between mortgage rates and riskless interest rates, which confirms the findings of Goebel and Ma (1993). Second, mortgage rates were cointegrated with risky interest rates even before deregulation. Third, the link between mortgage rates and the risky bond rate can be associated with the behavior of the risk premium in the bond rate. The observed relationship is consistent with the stickiness observed by Haney (1988) and causes a more pronounced stickiness when rates are falling than when they are rising.     

The real consequences of bank mortgage lending standards

We examine the real effects of changes in bank mortgage loan underwriting standards by combining responses to the Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey, application information from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and local housing market measures over 1990 to 2013. Tightened standards are associated with a 1 percentage point increase in denial rates and a 5% fall in loan issuance, controlling for applicant pool changes, but no change for predominantly-securitizing banks. In areas with more exposure to banks that have tightened standards, mortgage delinquency rates, house prices, new home sales, and residential construction employment fall substantially.     

The agency costs of tranching: Evidence from RMBS

This paper documents the agency costs resulting from the deeper tranching of subprime residential mortgage pools. Mortgage servicers are less likely to renegotiate delinquent loans collateralizing a greater number and variety of tranches. We find that an interquartile increase in tranching reduces mortgage servicers’ probability of loan renegotiation by 14% relative to the mean. This effect is concentrated in mortgages with greater ambiguity surrounding the loan value maximizing action. Overall, our results support the notion that tranching worsens agency frictions by increasing coordination costs among investors and impeding their monitoring of the agent.     

从“次级债风波”看金融创新对风险传导机制的影响路径

从次级债风波的风险本质分析入手,基于Arrow-Lind定理分析了金融创新机制设计的内在逻辑在于风险分担个体增加对风险主体风险态度的影响,并在总结“次级债风波”的传导机理分析的基础上,从金融创新为金融主体风险态度的转变提供前提条件和投资经理人职责设计促使金融创新成为金融市场的信息不对称的“催化剂”两个角度研究金融创新对风险传导机制的影响路径,进而对金融市场如何完善风险控制机制的提出了三点建议。     

抵押资产价值评估:机构、技术与法律环境

抵押贷款是近年来商业银行信贷的主要方式。然而,由于抵押品自身存在的风险以及银行在抵押品评估中的疏漏,抵押贷款难以收回所导致的银行危机屡见不鲜。因此,抵押品价值评估机构体系的建立和设置,以及各种评估技术的创新和评估系统法律环境的建立,成为缓释银行信用危机、降低银行信贷风险的关键。     

商业银行抵押贷款问题调查

抵押是商业银行重要的信用风险缓释技术之一。本报告分析了本轮经济增长中抵押贷款的增长趋势及其风险,比较了国内13家金融机构内部有关抵押的管理制度以及各监管当局现行的抵押监管要求和香港金融管理局抵押品监管指引,指出商业银行要根据抵押资产价格走势调整抵押率、准确定价、充足拨备,避免经营的剧烈起伏。监管当局也要加强经济景气分析和有关抵押资产价格走势分析,对抵押率进行监测,并制定有关抵押问题的监管指引。     

The closing rate on residential mortgage commitments: An econometric analysis

Mortgage lenders routinely guarantee rates and points for periods of 60 days or more and hedge the inherent interest rate risk by selling the proportion of mortgages expected to close in forward markets. This article presents a model of the decision to close on the mortgage and demonstrates that the estimates of the model increase the precision of closing rate forecasts. The analysis indicates that changes in mortgage rates are important determinants of the closing rate for fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) and adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM). Other important factors include whether the mortgage is for a new purchase, for owner occupancy, and for a single-family house, and what the overall level of mortgage rates and the loan-to-value ratio are and whether the rate guarantee was granted at the application date or later.     

Benefits to Homeowners from Mortgage Portfolios Retained by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Mortgage investing is the domain of financial intermediaries, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who possess specialized knowledge and experienced analytic teams. Capital is channeled to homeowner/borrowers at lower cost through such entities. As the demand for mortgage borrowing outstrips aggregate domestic saving (which is currently negative) foreign sources of capital should become even more significant. Foreign capital can be channeled efficiently into the U.S. mortgage market by Fannie and Freddie. Their debt has the highest credit standing and their risk management ability has been demonstrated by their enormous retained portfolios of mortgages.     

A Model of Mortgage Default

In this paper, we solve a dynamic model of households' mortgage decisions incorporating labor income, house price, inflation, and interest rate risk. Using a zero‐profit condition for mortgage lenders, we solve for equilibrium mortgage rates given borrower characteristics and optimal decisions. The model quantifies the effects of adjustable versus fixed mortgage rates, loan‐to‐value ratios, and mortgage affordability measures on mortgage premia and default. Mortgage selection by heterogeneous borrowers helps explain the higher default rates on adjustable‐rate mortgages during the recent U.S. housing downturn, and the variation in mortgage premia with the level of interest rates.     

Stock Market Participation: Family Responses to Housing Consumption Commitments

As of 2007, many households had taken on very substantial commitments to housing and companion mortgage payments. At the same time they held little in the way of a traditional buffer stock of safer liquid assets but were more likely to have opened stock market accounts. Many of these families when experiencing subsequent mortgage payment difficulties are shown to have been more likely to exit the stock market. Mortgage difficulties also inhibited families from becoming new stock market participants. In this way stocks seem to have likely experienced some direct and indirect “collateral damage” from the housing market, 2007–9.     

Using Markov Chains to Estimate Losses from a Portfolio of Mortgages

Under Statement of Financial Accounting Standards Number Five, Accounting for Contingencies (SFAS 5), financial institutions record a provision for loan losses and establish loan loss reserves when impairment of a loan is probable and the loss can be reasonably estimated. Increasingly, Markov chain models are being used to estimate these losses. This paper develops and test the suitability and forecast accuracy of alternate Markov chain models of mortgage payment behavior using transition data from the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). In developing the models, the Freddie Mac transition data is examined to see if it satisfies the Markovian assumptions of stationary transition probabilities and homogenous payment behavior. The data examined in this paper did not satisfy these assumptions. With respect to accuracy in forecasting loan losses, the Markov chain approach, when incorporating recent information on transition probabilities, performed better than a random-walk model of loan losses.     

运用抵押率降低贷款行业风险

恰当地管理贷款行业中存在的风险至关重要。长期以来,放贷人借助首付准则和抵押贷款保险来降低风险敞口。本文讨论了抵押贷款行业中风险管理的各种方法,着重讨论了欧美的情况。     

我国倒按揭业务立法问题探讨——应对老龄化的法律创新

老龄化是我国经济发展方式转变的重要因素,应对老龄社会,必须建立全方位的养老法律体系。倒按揭业务通过市场化运行的金融产品,实现住房养老。各国倒按揭业务的运作模式大致有政府主导型、保险公司主导型及商业银行主导型三种,针对我国国情,应当选择商业银行主导型。我国立法应当引入让与担保,以构建倒按揭业务的基础法律关系。倒按揭合同应当设立无追索权、增值分享及回赎权等特别条款。为推动倒按揭业务在我国的发展,还应当设计政府支持、保险公司参与及资产证券化等支撑制度。     

Bank Capital Requirements, Capital Structure and Regulation

This paper studies the impact of capital requirements, deposit insurance and franchise value on a bank’s capital structure. We find that properly regulated banks voluntarily choose to maintain capital in excess of the minimum required. Central to this decision is both firm franchise value and the ability of regulators to place banks in receivership stripping equity holders of firm value. These features of our model help explain both the capital structure of the large mortgage Government Sponsored Enterprises and the recent increase in risk taking through leverage by financial institutions. The insights gained from the model are useful in guiding the discussion of financial regulatory reforms.     

Do Women Pay More for Mortgages?

This paper documents women on average pay more for mortgages than men. The disparity cannot be fully explained by traditional variables such as mortgage features, borrower characteristics, and market conditions. While the persistence of gender disparity may suggest discrimination, we offer a different explanation: women pay higher rates because they are more likely to choose lenders by recommendation while men tend to search for the lowest rate. Our empirical test confirms that search effort is rewarded in marketplace, and suggests that gender disparity in mortgage rates may be addressed by policies aimed at improving women’s financial literacy and search skills.     

Do Predatory Lending Laws Influence Mortgage Lending? An Analysis of the North Carolina Predatory Lending Law

In this paper, we examine the effect of the 1999 North Carolina predatory lending law on mortgage activity in that state as compared to other states in the Southeastern United States. Using 1998–2000 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data, we find that the North Carolina law reduced the overall level of subprime mortgage lending activity. Furthermore, we find that the North Carolina decline was caused by a decline in loan application volume and not by a change in loan denial rates, suggesting less aggressive marketing in that state after the imposition of the law. Finally, the impact of the legislation was different by both the type of financial service provider and borrower. Specifically, non-bank subprime lending contracted faster in North Carolina when compared to the control group, while both minority and low-income applicants were also less likely to get loans following the legislation. These results have wide ranging policy implications given that several predatory lending proposals are currently before Congress, as well as proposed in almost forty other states.     

Financial Crisis and Credit Crunch in the Housing Market

We investigate the recent financial crisis with an emphasis on the interlock among housing, mortgage, and credit markets. Following Geanakoplos (Econometric Society Monographs 2:170–205, 2003, 2010), we develop a model in which both prices of the mortgage and its collateral are simultaneously and endogenously determined. Our empirical tests confirm the model’s prediction that an adverse change in the risk free rate or the loan recovery rate can trigger the financial crisis as we observed. Finally, we discuss how the pro-cyclical leveraging practice by financial intermediaries can magnify their losses in mortgage-related assets and consequently cause significant contraction in the balance sheets of these firms.     

Optimal Mortgage Contract Choice Decision in the Presence of Pay Option Adjustable Rate Mortgage and the Balloon Mortgage

The unprecedented run-up in global house prices of the 2000s was preceded by a revolution in U.S. mortgage markets in which borrowers faced a plethora of mortgages to choose from collectively known as nontraditional mortgages (NTMs), whose poor performance helped ignite the global financial crisis in 2007. This paper studies the choice of mortgage contracts in an expanded framework where the menu of contracts includes the pay option adjustable rate mortgage (PO-ARM), and the balloon mortgage (BM), alongside the traditional long horizon fixed rate mortgage (FRM) and the short horizon regular ARM. The inclusion of the PO-ARM is based on the fact it is the most controversial and perhaps the riskiest of the NTMs, whereas the BM has not been analyzed in the literature despite its different risk-sharing arrangement and long vintage. Our inclusive model relates the structural differences of these contracts to the horizon risk management problems and affordability constraints faced by the households that differ in terms of expected mobility. The numerical solutions of the model generates a number of interesting results suggesting that households select mortgage contracts to match their horizon, manage horizon risk and mitigate liquidity or affordability constraints they face. From a risk management and welfare perspectives, we find that the optimal contract for households with shorter horizons, specifically households who expect to move house once every 1 to 2 years, is the PO-ARM. Beyond 2 years the welfare advantage of the PO-ARM diminishes and BM becomes the more optimal contract up to 5-year horizon. Overall, the results suggest that households are neither as risk averse as the selection of the FRM would suggest, nor are they as risk-seeking as the selection of PO-ARM or regular ARM would suggest. The results also suggest that the exuberance demonstrated for NTMs by borrowers, especially PO-ARMs, may be both rational and irrational.     

What determines the composition of banks’ loan portfolios? Evidence from transition countries

This paper explores how bank characteristics and the institutional environment influence the composition of banks’ loan portfolios. We use a new and unique data set based on the EBRD Banking Environment and Performance Survey (BEPS), which was conducted for 220 banks in 20 transition countries. We show that bank ownership, bank size, and legal creditor protection are important determinants of the composition of banks’ loan portfolios. In particular, we find that foreign banks play an active role in mortgage lending. Moreover, banks that perceive pledge and mortgage laws to be of high quality choose to focus more on mortgage lending.