THE SUBPRIME CRISIS: IS GOVERNMENT HOUSING POLICY TO BLAME?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Avery, Robert B.; Brevoort, Kenneth P.
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00491
• 发表日期: 2015-05
• 页码: 352-363
• 关键词: mortgage; goals

摘要

Some have suggested that housing policy, embodied by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and affordable housing goals of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), caused the subprime crisis. We examine if these programs led to worse mortgage outcomes using two approaches. The first examines whether more activity by CRA-covered lenders, or more loan sales to the GSEs, was associated with worse outcomes. The second uses regression discontinuity to determine if outcomes were worse at the geographic thresholds used by each program. Our results suggest that neither program played a significant role in the subprime crisis.