1,720,984 research outputs found
The economics of asset securitization
Get PDFRonel Elul explains why asset-backed securities exist and discusses some reasons for their common structure. Elul notes that despite well-developed theories on the what and why of securitization, more research is needed. In particular, additional research could uncover the effect that government regulation and bankruptcy law have on securitization.Asset-backed financing
Liquidity crises
Get PDFFinancial markets have experienced several episodes of “liquidity crises” over the past 20 years. One prominent example is the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund in 1998. The recent market disruption brought about by the downturn in subprime mortgages also shares many features with liquidity crises. What is liquidity? Why does it sometimes seem that the market’s supply of it is insufficient? Can anything be done about it? In “Liquidity Crises,” Ronel Elul outlines some theories of market liquidity provision, how it breaks down in times of crisis, and some possible government responses.Liquidity (Economics)
Regulating short-sales
Get PDFShort-selling, the practice of selling a security the seller does not own, is done in an attempt to profit from an expected decline in the price of the security. During the recent financial turmoil, many press accounts blamed short-selling for declines in stock prices and even for the collapse of some firms. In "Regulating Short-Sales," Ronel Elul discusses the issue of short-selling. He notes that research has shown that short-selling plays a valuable role in setting accurate prices for securities but that it can also be used to facilitate market manipulation. This latter consideration may provide justification for restricting short-sales under certain circumstances.
What have we learned about mortgage default?
Get PDFBy the end of 2009, one out of every 11 mortgages was seriously delinquent or in foreclosure. Economists have devoted considerable energy over the past several years to understanding the underlying causes of this increase in defaults. One goal is to provide a guide to dealing with the existing problems. In addition, a better understanding may help avoid future problems. In “What Have We Learned About Mortgage Default?” Ronel Elul reviews recent research that has shed light on two areas: the extent to which securitization is responsible for the increase in default rates; and the relative contributions of negative equity, compared with “liquidity shocks,” in explaining mortgage default.Mortgage loans ; Default (Finance)
Residential housing and personal bankruptcy
Get PDFBankruptcy filings are on the rise, and millions of households have either lost their homes to foreclosure or are on the verge of losing them. One subject of debate amid this rising number of bankruptcies is how personal bankruptcy laws deal with residential housing. This subject centers on two main issues: First, how do personal bankruptcy laws affect the availability of mortgages and the terms on which borrowers obtain mortgages? Second, how do personal bankruptcy filings affect the outcome of mortgage foreclosures? In "Residential Housing and Personal Bankruptcy," Wenli Li discusses these questions and examines the economic literature to shed some light on the legislative and policy debates that are likely to recur after the current crisis is over.
Collateral, credit history, and the financial decelerator
Get PDFThe author develops a simple model in which financial imperfections can serve to stabilize aggregate fluctuations and not merely aggravate them as in much of the previous literature; the author terms this a financial decelerator. In the model agents borrow to purchase housing and secure their loans with this long-lived asset. There are two financial imperfections in this model. First, agents are unable to commit to repay their loans — that is, they can strategically default. This limits the amount that lenders are willing to offer. In addition, however, lenders are also imperfectly informed as to a borrower’s propensity to default; that is, there is adverse selection. The latter imperfection implies that default may actually occur in equilibrium, unlike in much of the previous literature. For relatively high house prices the commitment problem ensures that the equilibrium is typically characterized by a standard financial accelerator; that is, the borrowing constraints which prevent default become tighter as falling prices reduce the wealth with which agents can collateralize future loans, thereby exacerbating aggregate fluctuations. However, Elul shows that when prices are very low, agents will default, which serves as a stabilizing force; he terms this a financial decelerator. ; Also issued as Payment Cards Center Discussion Paper No. 05-14Credit ; Default (Finance)
Securitization and mortgage default
Get PDFThe academic literature, the popular press, and policymakers have all debated securitization's contribution to the poor performance of mortgages originated in the run-up to the recent crisis. Theoretical arguments have been advanced on both sides, but the lack of suitable data has made it difficult to assess them empirically. The author examines this issue by using a loan-level data set from LPS Analytics, covering approximately two-thirds of the mortgages originated in 2005 and 2006, and including both securitized and nonsecuritized loans. ; The author finds evidence that privately securitized loans do indeed perform worse than observably similar, nonsecuritized loans. Moreover, this effect is strongest in prime mortgage markets, which have not been studied in the previous literature. For example, a typical prime loan becomes delinquent at a 20 percent higher rate if it is privately securitized, ceteris paribus. This is consistent with the existence of adverse selection; that is, that lenders used information not available to investors to securitize loans that were riskier than they otherwise appeared. By contrast, for subprime mortgages, the impact of private securitization is concentrated in low or no-documentation loans; this latter result is consistent with previous work such as Keys et al. (2009).Mortgage-backed securities ; Default (Finance)
Welfare-improving financial innovation with a single good
No full textWe show that at any equilibrium of almost every single-good incomplete markets economy, it is possible to find an asset which when introduced makes every agent better-off. Diamond (1967) has shown, however, that such economies are constrained suboptimal, so it is of course impossible to find a new asset which makes all agents worse-off. This contrasts with the case of multiple consumption goods, for which Cass and Citanna (1995) and Elul (1995) demonstrate that equilibrium utilities may be arbitrarily perturbed via financial innovation. Proving our result requires us to exploit not changes in equilibrium prices, but rather the gains to trading the new asset. In particular, we find an asset which when introduced does not change the existing asset prices even though it is traded by every agent - by a revealed preference argument it must therefore make everyone better-off.
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