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Working Paper
The GSE implicit subsidy and value of government ambiguity
The housing-related government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the "GSEs") have an ambiguous relationship with the federal government. Most purchasers of the GSEs' debt securities believe that this debt is implicitly backed by the U.S. government despite the lack of a legal basis for such a belief. In this paper, I estimate how much GSE shareholders gain from this ambiguous government relationship. I find that (1) the federal government's implicit subsidy of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has resulted in a funding advantage for the GSEs over private sector institutions, (2) ...
Working Paper
The Marginal Effect of Government Mortgage Guarantees on Homeownership
The U.S. government guarantees a majority of residential mortgages, which is often justified as a means to promote homeownership. In this paper we use property-level data to estimate the effect of government mortgage guarantees on homeownership, by exploiting variation of the conforming loan limits (CLLs) along county borders. We find substantial effects on government guarantees, but find no robust effect on homeownership. This finding suggests that government guarantees could be considerably reduced with modest effects on homeownership, which is relevant for housing finance reform plans that ...
Working Paper
Executive compensation at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Corporate governance-and executive-compensation arrangements in particular-should be an important component of the agenda to reform the housing GSEs. The GSEs' safety-and-soundness regulator-who is essentially the debtholders' and taxpayers' representative-must be admitted to the GSEs' boardroom in a way that is atypical of an ordinary publicly held company. This intrusion into the board's oversight of executive-compensation plans is justified given the GSEs' public purposes and their large potential cost to taxpayers. Prudent public policy requires greater supervisory control over executive ...
Working Paper
Comments on Jeske and Kreuger's \"Housing and the macroeconomy: the role of implicit guarantees for government sponsored enterprises\"
This working paper comments on Karsten Jeske and Dirk Krueger's "Housing and the Macroeconomy: The Role of Implicit Guarantees for Government Sponsored Enterprises," delivered at the Fiscal Policy and Monetary/Fiscal Policy Interactions conference held on April 19?20, 2007.
Speech
The GSEs: where do we stand?
a speech to the Chartered Financial Analysts of St. Louis, St. Louis, Jan. 17, 2007
Journal Article
Taxpayer risk in mortgage policy
Working Paper
Is the Federal Home Loan Bank system good for banks? a look at evidence on membership, advances and risk
Since the early 1990s, commercial banks have turned to Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) advances to plug the gap between loan and deposit growth. Is this trend worrisome? On the one hand, advances implicitly encourage risk by insulating borrowers from market discipline. On the other, advances give borrowers greater flexibility to managing interest rate and liquidity risk. And access to FHLBank funding encourages members to reshape their balance sheets in ways that could lower credit risk. Using quarterly financial and supervisory data for banks from 1992 to 2000, we assess the effect of ...
Journal Article
Fed economists point to financial system risks from housing GSEs
In a working paper, three Atlanta Fed economists examine the risks that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?s portfolios pose to the financial system and propose that limits on their portfolios? size could mitigate their inherent risk.
Conference Paper
Valuing conjectural government guarantees of FNMA liabilities
Conference Paper
Government and GSEs: relationship and regulation