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This paper seeks to examine the role that regulation and regulatory agencies played in the creating of the subprime mortgage market, and the subsequent crash of the mortgage market. The paper has two goals. First, it seeks to document the degree to which the US housing markets, and the US housing finance market, were regulated prior to the crash. Second, it seeks to show that regulatory bodies set policies which created both incentives and explicit requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as depository institutions, to enter the subprime market.

The paper examines the regulatory environment of the subprime market. It uses regulatory filings and other documents as primary sources.

The popular perception that the subprime mortgage market arose because housing finance was largely unregulated is incorrect. In point of fact, the housing finance market was very heavily regulated. Indeed, the paper shows that the creation of the subprime market was a formal goal of the federal government, and that federal regulatory agencies explicitly required participation by the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs).

The paper's primary implication is that incentive conflicts within the US housing finance system significantly contributed to the mortgage crisis. These incentive conflicts were not just within private firms, but also extend to the GSEs and regulatory agencies. Regulatory agencies not only failed to anticipate the crisis; they actively encouraged the policies which created it. As a result, the primary focus of reform efforts should be on identifying and eliminating such conflicts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which the USA has sought to hold the leading banks to account for the financial crisis and to asses the validity of the methods used. This is the first of two articles which looks at the basis of the Complaints against the banks and the settlements which led to the imposition of large fines on the banks.

The paper first provides an account of the government housing policy from 1995 to 2008 and argues that the cases brought against the banks and then at the legal basis of the charges. The methodology consists of a careful examination of the documentary evidence and an analysis of the changes in the relevant laws used by the Department of Justice when bringing charges against the banks.

The paper concludes that both the basis of the cases against the banks and the purpose of large fines are open to question.

Much of the information is available. However, as the major cases against the large banks did not go the court, and the basis of the fines is a settlement between the bank and the Department of Justice, each fine is supported by a relatively brief “Statement of the Facts”. The evidence amassed by subpoenas issued by the Department of Justice is not tested in court.

Much greater consideration must be given to more effective ways of holding banks and especially senior executives to account.

The imposition of large fines does not satisfy the public desire to see that justice is done. Such fines imposed on the ban are not likely to change bank behaviour.

Its originality lies in setting out an account of government housing policy and its role in the run-up to the financial crisis. No one has carried out a careful analysis of the cases against the large banks brought by the Department of Justice and, in the second article, by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The purpose of this postmortem is to assess whether the design, implementation, and maintenance of financial policies during the period from 1996 through 2006 were primary causes of the financial system's demise.

To draw conclusions about the policy determinants of the crisis, the paper studies five important policies: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) policies toward credit rating agencies, Federal Reserve policies concerning bank capital and credit default swaps, SEC and Federal Reserve policies about over‐the‐counter derivatives, SEC policies toward the consolidated supervision of major investment banks, and government policies toward two housing‐finance entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The evidence is inconsistent with the view that the collapse of the financial system was caused only by the popping of the housing bubble (“accident”) and the herding behavior of financiers rushing to create and market increasingly complex and questionable financial products (“suicide”). Rather, the evidence indicates that senior policymakers repeatedly designed, implemented, and maintained policies that destabilized the global financial system in the decade before the crisis. Moreover, although the major regulatory agencies were aware of the growing fragility of the financial system due to their policies, they chose not to modify those policies, suggesting that “negligent homicide” contributed to the financial system's collapse.

Although influential policymakers presume that international capital flows, euphoric traders, and insufficient regulatory power caused the crisis, this paper shows that these factors played only a partial role. Thus, current reforms represent only a partial and thus incomplete step in establishing a stable and well‐functioning financial system. Since systemic institutional failures helped cause the crisis, systemic institutional reforms must be a part of a comprehensively effective response.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the basis of the complaints against banks which sold private label securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the financial crisis. The examination shows that all but one of the cases was settled out of court. Nomura and RBS went to court, but the case against them was based on dubious evidence and on strict liability which only enabled the judge to set aside relevant evidence. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s evidence against senior executives of Fannie and Freddie shows that they deliberately purchased PLSs based on subprime loans to meet the government’s housing targets.

The research was based on publicly available documents, including details of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) complaints against the banks in question, the settlement agreements published by the DoJ, FHFA and SEC. Furthermore, it includes documentary evidence from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Committee and Senate Committees, the full transcript of the trial, opinions of the judge for the trial and the judgement.

The findings are that many have concluded that settlements out of court fail to satisfy the demand for justice. They have been criticised as a trade-off between the prosecutor and the bank, with a view that the imposition of large fines is to pay back taxpayers’ money spent on rescuing the banks, rather than punishing those responsible. Such fines do little, if anything, to change the behaviour of banks. As a result, the Department of Justice issued a memorandum on 9 September to focus on individual accountability for corporate wrongdoing. It remains to be seen how many cases against senior executives will result from the change in direction.

The implications of the research are that it is important even in the aftermath of such a serious if not devastating financial crisis to ensure that the laws are properly applied and can stand up to any challenge that it has been stretched to obtain the results the administration of the day wants to see. In addition, care must be taken over both the imposition of large fines and the use to which the monies should be put. All the parties involved in bringing about the crisis should be held to account. The major cases against the banks have almost all been “resolved”. A change in direction has now taken place.

The practical implications of holding individuals to account should now be tackled. It requires a careful examination of the laws and regulations already in place to ensure that it is clear within a bank as to who is responsible for what. It will only be possible to hold senior individuals to account if the laws are clear and if all the evidence is not hidden. It may also require a review of the contracts under which senior executives are employed, because to remove a person from his post and then find that he still has a large pension pot and bonuses due may not result in justice either. A delicate balancing act is required because banks require highly competent and motivated individuals to run them.

If a very large fine is imposed on a bank, the shareholders and customers pay. The shareholders will mostly own the shares through their pensions and their savings in mutual funds.

There have been few studies of all the cases against the banks brought by the DoJ and FHFA and still fewer have recognized the fact that government housing policy was the source of the extent of the subprime mortgages.

This chapter analyses the causes and effects of the financial crisis that commenced in 2008, and it examines the dramatic government rescues and reforms. The outcomes of this, the most severe collapse to befall the United States and the global economy for three-quarters of a century, are still unfolding. Banks, homeowners and industries stood to benefit from government intervention, particularly the huge infusion of taxpayer funds, but their future is uncertain. Instead of extending vital credit, banks simply kept the capital to cover other firm needs (including bonuses for executives). Industry in the prevailing slack economy was not actively seeking investment opportunities and credit expansion. The property and job markets languished behind securities market recovery. It all has been disheartening and scary – rage against those in charge fuelled gloom and cynicism. Immense private debt was a precursor, but public debt is the legacy we must resolve in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate that price appreciation for single‐family sales data for the complete population of deed recordings in one metro area using median comparisons is statistically more accurate in capturing local fluctuations than the repeat sale sample approach published by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The median comparison method becomes the optimal method of choice due to its simplicity and ease in interpretation. The electronic access to court house records means that the complete population of data should be used to extract a community price trend in lieu of samples.

Local deed recordings for residential housing were compared to repeat sale results from the Federal Finance Housing Admin. The goal is to measure housing price appreciation.

Appreciation measured by local deed recordings captures house price variance better than repeat sales taken from mortgage applications.

A median to median comparison with local sales prices should be used in lieu of a national statistic using mortgage applications.

This project provides a more accurate method to assess price appreciation. Repeat sales are not appropriate especially in smaller metro areas.

Every individual and financial institution needs to know the value of its housing asset. The method shown is the best available.

The results have huge implications for the academic community where many regression equations are based on repeat sales.

Relative to comparable industrialized countries, Germany stands out in terms of its low homeownership rate (43 percent). For Germany, it is unknown so far to what extent the low rate of homeownership can be related to housing being unaffordable. One reason for the lack of evidence is the apparent lack of data. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap.

Based on a regional dataset of 3.9 million asking prices of housing units collected by a real estate listing engine, the paper applies internationally established affordability concepts to the German housing market. The authors then run a number of cross‐section regressions at the level of the 16 German federal states, using the affordability measures as explanatory variables of the rate of homeownership.

The results show that the average German household would have to sacrifice a large part of its non‐housing consumption to afford homeownership, especially of single‐family homes. As the regional analysis reveals, certain types of household can even be considered excluded from the ownership market in some particularly unaffordable states with cost burdens of over 50 percent, such as Bavaria. The cross‐section regression results for the 16 federal states affirm the importance of affordability as a determinant of the homeownership rate.

The official data on ownership rates are rather spotty over time and only available for a single year (2006) for the time frame that is considered for the affordability analysis (2005‐2010). Given the data limitations, the regression analysis has to be confined to a single cross section least squares regression for 2006. The authors are aware that to obtain truly convincing results, it would be necessary to capture the development of ownership rates in different localities in Germany, such as the 16 federal states, over time and to check to what extent the affordability measures can explain any of the variation in ownership rates in a panel data framework with fixed effects for federal states and time. However, the authors feel that the regression results may serve as a starting point; they are better than a set of simple correlations, even if they constitute not a conclusive causal analysis.

Any public policy initiative to raise Germany's homeownership rate will have to address the question of how to make housing more affordable. The recent elimination of homeowner subsidies is working in exactly the opposite direction.

The affordability approach used is technically not new or challenging, but it offers a basis for comparison that has been conspicuously lacking so far for the fourth largest economy of the world. By applying affordability concepts that are well accepted and in use internationally, the authors believe that they can provide at least some suggestive evidence that can further spur research into the affordability issue. While the authors do not break new methodological ground with their paper, they do provide a basis of comparison for policy discussion and for further research. Germany provides a unique environment for affordability research, due to its reunification history, observations from which may thus yield insights valuable to the international research community.

This paper, a case study, aims to consider whether the income ratio and rental ratio tracks the formation of residential housing price spikes and their collapse. The ratios are measuring the risk associated with house price stability. They may signal whether a real estate investor should consider purchasing real property, continue holding it or consider selling it. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Dallas Fed) calculates and publishes income ratios for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries to measure “irrational exuberance,” which is a measure of housing price risk for a given country's housing market. The USA is a member of the organization. The income ratio idea is being repurposed to act as a buy/sell signal for real estate investors.

The income ratio calculated by the Dallas Fed and this case study's ratio were date-stamped and graphed to determine whether the 2006–2008 housing “bubble and burst” could be visually detected. An ordinary least squares regression with the data transformed into logs and a regression with structural data breaks for the years 1990 through 2019 were modeled using the independent variables income ratio, rent ratio and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. The descriptive statistics show a gradual increase in the ratios prior to exposure to an unexpected, exogenous financial shock, which took several months to grow and collapse. The regression analysis with breaks indicates that the income ratio can predict changes in housing prices using a lead of 2 months.

The gradual increases in the ratios with predetermine limits set by the real estate investor may trigger a sell decision when a specified rate is reached for the ratios even when housing prices are still rising. The independent variables were significant, but the rent ratio had the correct sign only with the regression with time breaks model was used. The housing spike using the Dallas Fed's income ratio and this study's income ratio indicated that the housing boom and collapse occurred rapidly. The boom does not appear to be a continuous housing price increase followed by a sudden price drop when ratio analysis is used. The income ratio is significant through time, but the rental ratio and Consumer Sentiment Index are insignificant for multiple-time breaks.

Investors should consider the relative prices of residential housing in a neighborhood when purchasing a property coupled with income and rental ratio trends that are taking place in the local market. High relative income ratios may signal that when an unexpected adverse event occurs the housing market may enter a state of crisis. The relative housing prices to income ratio indicates there is rising housing price stability risk. Aggregate data for the country are used, whereas real estate prices are also significantly impacted by local conditions.

Ratio trends might enable real estate investors and homeowners to determine when to sell real estate investments prior to a price collapse and preserve wealth, which would otherwise result in the loss of equity. Higher exuberance ratios should result in an increase in the discount rate, which results in lower valuations as measured by the formula net operating income dividend by the discount rate. It can also signal when to start reinvesting in real estate, because real estate prices are rising, and the ratios are relative low compared to income.

The graphical descriptive depictions seem to suggest that government intervention into the housing market while a spike is forming may not be possible due to the speed with which a spike forms and collapses. Expected income declines would cause the income ratios to change and signal that housing prices will start declining. Both the income and rental ratios in the US housing market have continued to increase since 2008.

A consumer sentiment variable was added to the analysis. Prior researchers have suggested adding a consumer sentiment explanatory variable to the model. The results generated for this variable were counterintuitive. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) price index results signaled a change during a different year than when the S&P/Case–Shiller Home Price Index is used. Many prior studies used the FHFA price index. They emphasized regulatory issues associated with changing exuberance ratio levels. This case study applies these ideas to measure relative increases in risk, which should impact the discount rate used to estimate the intrinsic value of a residential property.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief introduction to the role of the Fannie Mae/ Freddie Mac duopoly in the American housing market.

First, the paper defines the “government sponsored enterprise,” which is the type of hybrid public/private entity that Fannie and Freddie are and provides an introduction to the other significant government sponsored enterprises. It then explains what Fannie and Freddie do in the American mortgage market and provides a brief history of how the two companies developed. Finally, it evaluates the two companies as duopolists in the conforming mortgage market.

The paper concludes by suggesting that the current financial crisis presents an opportunity to rethink whether the Fannie/Freddie duopoly continues to serve the public interest.

Because of its length, the paper does not review alternative approaches to the status quo that the US Government can take to ensure that it has a stable federal housing finance policy.

The paper argues that the current financial crisis provides an opportunity to revisit the design of the structure of the US housing finance market.

The paper sets forth the rationale and legal basis for characterizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as duopolists.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a cohesive review of the major findings in the literature concerning the Global Financial Crisis.

Papers published in top-rated finance and economics journal since the crisis up to the present were reviewed. A large number of these were selected for inclusion, primarily based on the number of citations they had received adjusted for the amount of time elapsed since their publication, but also partly based on how well they fit in with the narrative.

Much has been done to investigate the causes of the Global Financial Crisis, its effects on various aspects of the financial system, and the effectiveness of regulatory measures undertaken to restore the financial system. While more remains to be done, the existing body of research paints an interesting picture of what happened and why it happened, describes the interrelationships between the mortgage markets and financial markets created by the large scale securitization of financial assets, identifies the problems created by these inter-linkages and offers possible solutions, and assesses the effectiveness of the regulatory response to the crisis.

This study summarizes a vast amount of literature using a framework that allows the reader to quickly absorb a large amount of information as well as identify specific works that they may wish to examine more closely. By providing a picture of what has been done, it may also assist the reader in identifying areas that should be the subject of future research.