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Journal Article
Better Housing Policies
Discussion Paper
Understanding Ohios land bank legislation
The effects of sustained high rates of foreclosure on numerous areas of Cuyahoga County have thrust land banking to the forefront of recent public policy discussions in Ohio. This Policy Discussion Paper seeks to inform those discussions by explaining the states current land banking system and by illustrating how the proposed system under Senate Bill 353/House Bill 602 (the Land Bank Bill) would work.
Journal Article
Regulating the raters: Key provisions in proposed reforms
Credit rating organizations such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's have been counted on to provide investors with impartial assessments of companies' creditworthiness, and some have relied on CROs instead of due diligence. Reforms are needed but if regulators have rule-writing authority, they can use flexibility and creativity rather than just legislation.
Working Paper
The effect of local housing ordinances
The housing and economic crises have exerted a strong and lingering impact on housing markets across the nation. In this paper, we assess the degree to which local anti-blight policies have infl uenced housing market outcomes following the crises. The analysis is performed for cities in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. We measure outcomes that characterize market distress and that may be influenced by local housing ordinances including foreclosure, bulk sales, flipping, vacancy, and tax delinquency. Using matching procedures on linked data containing property, loan, and transaction characteristics, we ...
Working Paper
False security: how securitization failed to protect arrangers and investors from borrower claims
The future of housing finance is in a state of flux. In February 2011, the Obama Administration released a proposal outlining three plans for the future of housing finance. In all three plans, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will be phased out over a period of years and replaced with a private securitization market, which may be backed, in whole or in part, by a government guarantee. Whether the final plan relies upon government-guaranteed securities or private-label securities, Congress will have to resolve a range of complex legal aspects of securitization, from the bankruptcy remoteness of ...
Journal Article
Making financial markets safer for consumers: lessons from consumer goods markets and beyond
In the wake of the mortgage meltdown, policymakers are discussing how best to protect consumers in financial product markets.
Working Paper
The impact of vacant, tax-delinquent, and foreclosed property on sales prices of neighboring homes
In this empirical analysis, we estimate the impact of vacancy, neglect associated with property-tax delinquency, and foreclosures on the value of neighboring homes using parcel-level observations. Numerous studies have estimated the impact of foreclosures on neighboring properties, and these papers theorize that the foreclosure impact works partially through creating vacant and neglected homes. To our knowledge, this is only the second attempt to estimate the impact of vacancy itself and the first to estimate the impact of tax-delinquent properties on neighboring home sales. We link vacancy ...
Journal Article
Municipal finance in the face of falling property values
Journal Article
Resolving large, complex financial firms
How to best manage the failure of systemically important financial firms was the theme of a recent conference at which the latest research on the issue was presented. Here we summarize that research, the discussions that it sparked, and the areas where considerable work remains.
Working Paper
Reconsidering the application of the holder in due course rule to home mortgage notes
In this paper we investigate the history of negotiable instruments and the holder in due course rule and contrast their function and consequences in the 1700s with their function and consequences today. We explain how the holder in due course rule works and identify ways in which the rule?s application is limited in some consumer transactions. In particular, we focus on laws limiting application of the rule to some home mortgage loans. We investigate Lord Mansfield?s original justification for the rule as a money substitute, the lack of explicit justification of the rule by the drafters of ...