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The 2000–2006 housing market bubble conformed to a classic boom–bust scenario that triggered the most serious and costly financial crisis since the Great Depression. The 2008 subprime mortgage collapse leveraged a financial system that privatizes profits and socializes risks. Several factors converge to set up the subprime mortgage market as an easy target for industry insiders to exploit. Enabling legislation expanded the potential pool of borrowers eligible for subprime mortgages and structured incentives to lenders willing to assume the risks. The securitization of subprime mortgages transformed bundles of high-risk loans into mortgage-backed securities that were in demand by domestic and foreign investors. Pressure to edge out competition produced high-risk loans marketed to unqualified borrowers. The final piece in the setup of the subprime lending crisis was a move from an origination model to a distributive model by many financial institutions in the business of lending. We find that the diffusion and totality of these business practices produced a criminogenic opportunity structure for industry insiders to profit at the expense of homebuyers and later investors.

A subprime loan to straw borrower Charlotte Delaney was used to fraudulently strip equity from an elderly African American couple in Chicago. Following this loan from origination to securitization highlights responsibility for the wave of early payment default loans that contributed to the implosion of subprime lending. The Delaney loan, funded by subprime lender Mortgage Investment Lending Associates (MILA), was representative of the stated income, no down payment loans that defaulted in 2006 at the peak of the subprime bubble. MILA was suffering financially from demands to repurchase loans and was insolvent as early as 2004. MILA underwriters approved the Delaney loans despite obvious indications of fraud. Goldman Sachs bought MILA loans for inclusion in a $1.5 billion residential mortgage-backed security. Goldman Sachs warned investors that subprime loans were high risk and promised extensive due diligence. When subpoenaed for evidence of due diligence on MILA, Goldman Sachs provided none. The drive to generate profits through securitization explains why Goldman Sachs did not investigate and did not uncover MILA's inability to repurchase a growing portfolio of early payment default loans. Competition to buy subprime loans for securitization relieved lenders like MILA of pressure to verify that their loans were sustainable and not fraudulent.

The 2007–2009 financial crisis initially appeared to have destroyed a huge amount of wealth in the United States. Housing prices dropped about 21% across the country and as much as 50% in some places, and the stock market dropped by nearly 50% as well. This chapter examines how the financial crisis differentially affected households at different parts of the income and wealth distributions. Our results show that all households lost about the same percentage of their wealth in that period. But because households in the top 10% of the wealth distribution owned many different kinds of assets, their wealth soon recovered. The bottom 80% of the wealth distribution had more of their wealth tied up in housing. We show that financial distress, indexed by foreclosures, being behind in mortgage payments, and changes in house prices were particularly concentrated in households in the bottom 80% of the wealth distribution. These households lost a large part of their wealth and have not yet recovered. Households that were most deeply affected were those who entered the housing market late and took out subprime loans. African American and Hispanic households were particularly susceptible as they bought houses late in the price bubble often with subprime loans.

This chapter examines how deregulatory fiscal policies undermined federal legislation intended to reduce racial and economic inequality through measures that included wider access to home loans among minority populations. We focus specifically on structural tensions that existed between fostering the goals of economic and racial equality within a political structure that also serves the needs of finance capitalism. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), typically considered a triggering point for the financial meltdown by conservative commentators, was passed to address racial and economic inequalities, yet financial deregulation and the growth of the subprime mortgage industry ended up completely subverting these goals. The unprecedented growth and evolution of the subprime mortgage industry that occurred largely outside of the law's reach helped minorities and other economically disadvantaged groups enter into the housing market. However, a crime-facilitative environment brought on by inadequate regulation resulted in a significant degree of fraud by lenders. While this expanded homeownership among minorities, it eventually pushed them into default and brought chaos to the entire U.S. economy. This chapter details how the collapse of the subprime industry disproportionately impacted minority populations, and exposes how deregulatory policies subverted the effectiveness and reach of the FHA and CRA. The history of the CRA provides a clear example of the contradictory tensions within the U.S. legal system that espouses equality yet ultimately fails those it was designed to help as a consequence of unfettered capitalism.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the recent subprime mortgage market meltdown from a theoretical and practical perspective.

The authors apply the principles of transaction costs economics to critically evaluate the roles of lenders, borrowers, institutions, and investors.

It is found that a combination of need, greed, perverse incentives, inadequate risk controls, lax regulation, and lax oversight caused a bubble in the subprime mortgage market which has inevitably burst. The principles of transaction cost economics provide a template for analysis and corrective action.

The subprime mortgage market provides a useful example of where theory can provide helpful insights. The example has implications for future research in other financial market settings.

The results provide insight and guidance to lenders, borrowers, institutions, investors, regulators, and central bankers in how to identify and handle potentially toxic financial scenarios.

The theoretical perspective has not been applied to the subprime market or other similar financial settings. It offers both academic and practical contributions.

Subprime mortgage was a kind of high-risk and high-interest lending, especially targeted at low-income and minority borrowers. The majority of subprime mortgage loans were made to non-affluent, low-income and poor borrowers who were previously unable to buy properties and might have poor credit histories (Pitcoff, 2003; Schwarcz, 2009). Why did mortgage lenders compromise their lending standards and dare to take obviously huge risks in mortgage lending? It is clear that the origin of the aggressive subprime mortgage practices were linked to the US Government's policy for increasing national homeownership and encouraging lenders to provide mortgage loans and other credits to low-income and minority borrowers, as a specific stakeholder group.

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 past century and a quarter can be divided into three successive eras for homeownership policy characterization. For the first four decades, the federal government pursued a laissez-faire policy that left housing issues to the individual states and private markets. For the next six decades, the federal government implemented a policy created as part of the Roosevelt New Deal program. Finally, the Clinton administration discarded the New Deal policy in favor of a more aggressive policy that has continued to the present day. The purpose of this study is to compare the performance of the respective policies.

The study introduces two metrics. The first metric, based on government homeownership rate data, enables comparison of the laissez-faire and New Deal policies. The second metric, based on financial frictions in the mortgage market, enables comparison of the New Deal and Clinton policies.

Analysis based on the first metric suggests the New Deal policy was successful in meeting its macroeconomic objectives and was more effective overall than the laissez-faire policy. Analysis based on the second metric suggests the New Deal policy was also more successful in both respects than the Clinton policy.

The findings suggest that the Clinton homeownership policy was the primary driver behind the recent US housing crisis and that vulnerability in the secondary mortgage market created by the Clinton policy represents systemic housing market risk.

The study introduces simple analytical tools to address problems related to systemic risk in the US housing and housing finance markets due to homeownership policy.

This paper aims to examine how the exogenous shock of the global financial crisis has had a differential impact on the housing markets of the USA and UK.

The paper begins by examining the nature and dynamics of the global financial crisis. It presents a detailed comparison of institutional and housing market characteristics in each country. A particular focus is the differences in mortgage funding and subprime lending trends over the decade leading up to the financial crisis.

The analysis demonstrates the distinctiveness of the recent housing cycles and the geography of the downward price adjustments. Relative unemployment rates play a key role in these outcomes. Despite the different dynamics of the boom and bust, there is a common legacy in terms of the collapse of house building, repossessions/foreclosures and falling home ownership rates. The short-term policy responses by both governments addressed the same target issues in alternative ways but with different outcomes. Longer-term solutions are still being debated in both countries.

Innovatory insights are provided by the comparison of the sub-national spatial pattern of the recent house price cycle in two countries.

In October 2008, in the midst of a financial crisis, Anthony Keating, investment manager at the Boston private bank Billingsley, Blaylock, and Montgomery, was searching for an investment strategy to recommend to his high-net-worth clients. Traditional investments in the equity markets were being decimated, and Keating’s clients would be looking to him for ideas. Inspired by the success of Paulson and Co., Keating began to explore the possibility of entering a trade that would profit as homeowners defaulted on their mortgages. The more Keating learned about the trade, the more he realized that he needed to know about mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps. The case provides instructors with a chance to introduce these financial instruments, while at the same time providing lessons applicable to students interested in value investing or real estate finance.

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to:

• Explain how home mortgages are securitized into financial instruments that are traded in public markets

• Describe how credit default swaps can be used to speculate on the value of an underlying financial instrument

• Identify potential mispricing across related financial instruments

• Understand the potential risks and rewards of various financial investment strategies that look to capitalize on defaults on subprime mortgages

Explain how home mortgages are securitized into financial instruments that are traded in public markets

Describe how credit default swaps can be used to speculate on the value of an underlying financial instrument

Identify potential mispricing across related financial instruments

Understand the potential risks and rewards of various financial investment strategies that look to capitalize on defaults on subprime mortgages