IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2016-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Great Recession

Author

Abstract

Did government mortgage programs mitigate the adverse economic effects of the financial crisis? We find that counties with greater participation in traditional government mortgage programs experienced less severe economic downturns during the Great Recession. In particular, counties with higher levels of participation in FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac lending had relatively smaller increases in mortgage delinquency rates; smaller declines in purchase originations, home sales, home prices, and new automobile purchases; and smaller increases in unemployment rates. These results hold both in 2009 (soon after the peak of the financial crisis) and in 2014 (six years after the crisis). The persistence of better economic outcomes in these counties is consistent with a view that mortgage originators' access to a liquidity outlet (in this case, government-backed securitization) is key to maintaining credit flows and economic growth during financial turmoil.

Suggested Citation

  • Wayne Passmore & Shane M. Sherlund, 2016. "FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Great Recession," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2016-031, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2016-31
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2016.031r1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2016031r1pap.pdf
    File Function: (Revision)
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2016/files/2016031pap.pdf
    File Function: (Original)
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2016.031r1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steve Holden & Austin Kelly & Douglas McManus & Therese Scharlemann & Ryan Singer & John D. Worth, 2012. "The HAMP NPV Model: Development and Early Performance," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 40, pages 32-64, December.
    2. Heuson, Andrea & Passmore, Wayne & Sparks, Roger, 2001. "Credit Scoring and Mortgage Securitization: Implications for Mortgage Rates and Credit Availability," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 337-363, November.
    3. Wayne Passmore, 2005. "The GSE Implicit Subsidy and the Value of Government Ambiguity," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 33(3), pages 465-486, September.
    4. Peter M. DeMarzo, 2005. "The Pooling and Tranching of Securities: A Model of Informed Intermediation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 1-35.
    5. Congressional Budget Office, 2014. "Transitioning to Alternative Structures for Housing Finance," Reports 49765, Congressional Budget Office.
    6. Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2010. "Amplification Mechanisms in Liquidity Crises," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 1-30, July.
    7. W. Scott Frame & Lawrence J. White, 2005. "Fussing and Fuming over Fannie and Freddie: How Much Smoke, How Much Fire?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 159-184, Spring.
    8. Passmore, Wayne & Sparks, Roger, 1996. "Putting the Squeeze on a Market for Lemons: Government-Sponsored Mortgage Securitization," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 27-43, July.
    9. Viral V. Acharya & Matthew Richardson & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Lawrence J. White, 2011. "Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9400.
    10. Congressional Budget Office, 2014. "Transitioning to Alternative Structures for Housing Finance," Reports 49765, Congressional Budget Office.
    11. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2009. "The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Default Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1449-1496.
    12. Wayne Passmore & Roger W. Sparks, 2000. "Automated Underwriting and the Profitability of Mortgage Securitization," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 28(2), pages 285-305.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahnert, Toni & Kuncl, Martin, 2022. "Government loan guarantees, market liquidity, and lending standards," Working Paper Series 2710, European Central Bank.
    2. Wayne Passmore, 2003. "The GSE implicit subsidy and value of government ambiguity," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-64, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Gillian Burgess & Wayne Passmore & Shane M. Sherlund, 2005. "The effect of housing government-sponsored enterprises on mortgage rates," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-06, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. W. Scott Frame & Andreas Fuster & Joseph Tracy & James Vickery, 2015. "The Rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 25-52, Spring.
    5. W. Scott Frame, 2009. "The 2008 federal intervention to stabilize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2009-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    6. W. Scott Frame & Lawrence J. White, 2007. "Charter Value, Risk‐Taking Incentives, and Emerging Competition for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(1), pages 83-103, February.
    7. John M. Quigley, 2006. "Federal credit and insurance programs: housing," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 88(Jul), pages 281-310.
    8. Jin, Yu, 2012. "Essays on financial institutions and instability," ISU General Staff Papers 201201010800003361, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Calem, Paul & Henderson, Christopher & Liles, Jonathan, 2011. ""Cherry picking" in subprime mortgage securitizations: Which subprime mortgage loans were sold by depository institutions prior to the crisis of 2007?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 120-140, June.
    10. Mardi Dungey & Gerald Dwyer & Thomas Flavin, 2013. "Systematic and Liquidity Risk in Subprime-Mortgage Backed Securities," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 5-32, February.
    11. Vladimir Asriyan & Victoria Vanasco, 2019. "Security Design in Non-Exclusive Markets with Asymmetric Information," Working Papers 1164, Barcelona School of Economics.
    12. Pedro Gete & Franco Zecchetto, 2018. "Distributional Implications of Government Guarantees in Mortgage Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(3), pages 1064-1097.
    13. Deeksha Gupta, 2018. "Too Much Skin-in-the-Game? The Effect of Mortgage Market Concentration on Credit and House Prices," 2018 Meeting Papers 512, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Deborah Lucas & Robert McDonald, 2010. "Valuing Government Guarantees: Fannie and Freddie Revisited," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Managing Federal Financial Risk, pages 131-154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi & Francesco Trebbi, 2015. "Foreclosures, House Prices, and the Real Economy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(6), pages 2587-2634, December.
    16. Greg Buchak & Gregor Matvos & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru, 2018. "Beyond the Balance Sheet Model of Banking: Implications for Bank Regulation and Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 25149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Nadauld, Taylor D. & Weisbach, Michael S., 2012. "Did securitization affect the cost of corporate debt?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 332-352.
    18. Brent Ambrose & Michael LaCour-Little & Anthony Sanders, 2005. "Does Regulatory Capital Arbitrage, Reputation, or Asymmetric Information Drive Securitization?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 28(1), pages 113-133, October.
    19. John Y. Campbell, 2013. "Mortgage Market Design," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-33.
    20. Antoine Martin & Bruno M. Parigi, 2013. "Bank Capital Regulation and Structured Finance," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(1), pages 87-119, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial crisis; Great Recession; Government policy; Mortgages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2016-31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.