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Did affordable housing mandates cause the subprime mortgage crisis?

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  • Moulton, Shawn

Abstract

The 1992 Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act (GSE Act) mandated that a specified percentage of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchases come from underserved populations. A number of prominent observers have pointed to the GSE Act as a root cause of the recent housing crisis. This paper evaluates the link between the GSE Act and relaxed mortgage market standards. Using loan application-level data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, I analyze whether the GSE Act’s single-family affordable housing goals altered mortgage lending or purchasing decisions. To identify this effect, I use a regression discontinuity design that exploits arbitrary cutoffs used to determine whether a loan satisfies the GSE Act goals. I find that the GSE Act’s single-family affordable housing goals increased GSE purchases from very low-income borrowers by 4.4% but had no effect on mortgage lending. These results stand up to a number of specification and robustness checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Moulton, Shawn, 2014. "Did affordable housing mandates cause the subprime mortgage crisis?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 21-38.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhouse:v:24:y:2014:i:c:p:21-38
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhe.2013.11.001
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    1. Xudong An & Raphael Bostic, 2008. "GSE Activity, FHA Feedback, and Implications for the Efficacy of the Affordable Housing Goals," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 207-231, February.
    2. Neil Bhutta, 2012. "GSE Activity and Mortgage Supply in Lower-Income and Minority Neighborhoods: The Effect of the Affordable Housing Goals," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 238-261, June.
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    13. Neil Bhutta, 2008. "Giving credit where credit is due? the Community Reinvestment Act and mortgage lending in lower-income neighborhoods," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-61, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
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    Cited by:

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    2. Olsen, Edgar O. & Zabel, Jeffrey E., 2015. "US Housing Policy," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 887-986, Elsevier.
    3. Fernando Ferreira & Joseph Gyourko, 2015. "A New Look at the U.S. Foreclosure Crisis: Panel Data Evidence of Prime and Subprime Borrowers from 1997 to 2012," NBER Working Papers 21261, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Nelson, John P., 2023. "Differential “progressibility” in human know-how: A conceptual overview," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    5. Andra C. Ghent & Rubén Hernández-Murillo & Michael T. Owyang, 2015. "Did Affordable Housing Legislation Contribute to the Subprime Securities Boom?," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 43(4), pages 820-854, November.
    6. Bostic, Raphael & Ellen, Ingrid Gould, 2014. "Introduction: Special issue on housing policy in the United States," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 1-3.
    7. Zhao, Yunhui, 2016. "Got Hurt for What You Paid? Revisiting Government Subsidy in the U.S. Mortgage Market," MPRA Paper 81083, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Aug 2017.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Government sponsored enterprises; Affordable housing goals; Homeownership;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

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