The current crisis has centered on borrower defaults on mortgages and the associated effects on banks’ own credit standing (and in several cases their own default), which in turn led to tightened conditions for lending to new (mortgage) borrowers. Any model that does not incorporate all or most of ...

The securitization boom in the United States mortgage market from 2000 to 2005 was enormous (figure 1). According to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) new issuance of securities backed by mortgages that were not insured by the U.S. government rose by a factor of twelve ...

At least since the time of Irving Fisher economists as well as the general public have regarded the interest rate as the most important variable in the economy. But in times of crisis collateral rates (margins or leverage equivalently) are far more important. Despite the cries of newspapers to lower ...