Publications

April 2009 (Revised June 2010)
Case

U.S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis: Policy Reactions (B)

By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim

In March 2009, the U.S. economy was in a severe recession not seen since the Great Depression after the subprime mortgage crisis had spiraled out of control. The situation had dramatically changed in one year since the Federal Reserve Board had helped to bailout... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Central Banking; Mortgages; Globalized Economies and Regions; Policy; United States

August 2009
Teaching Note

U.S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis: Policy Reactions (TN) (A) and (B)

By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim

Teaching Note for [708036] and [709045]. View Details

Keywords: Mortgages; Crisis Management; Government and Politics; Financial Services Industry; United States

October 2019
Article

Partial Deregulation and Competition: Effects on Risky Mortgage Origination

By: Marco Di Maggio, Amir Kermani and Sanket Korgaonkar

We exploit the OCC's preemption of national banks from state laws against predatory lending as a quasi-experiment to study the effect of deregulation and its interaction with competition on the supply of complex mortgages. Following the preemption ruling, national... View Details

Keywords: Great Recession; Subprime; Complex Mortgages; Credit Supply; Household Debt; Preemption Rule; Competition; Mortgages; Government Legislation; Credit; Financial Crisis

Find at Harvard

12 Sep 2007
Op-Ed

Building Sandcastles: The Subprime Adventure

the subprime lenders—willing to take the risk on riskier borrowers, for a price. Thus far the tale testifies to America's entrepreneurial spirit. New mortgage banks specializing in View Details

Keywords: by Nicolas P. Retsinas; Banking; Construction; Real Estate

01 Dec 2007
News

Subprime Time

With markets reeling in the wake of the subprime mortgage fiasco, BusinessWeek (September 3, 2007) turned to Wall Street eminence and Lazard CEO Bruce Wasserstein (MBA ’71) for “much needed perspective on... View Details

Keywords: Bruce Wasserstein, MBA '71; Finance

March 2012
Article

Subprime Foreclosures and the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform

By: Donald Morgan, Benjamin Iverson and Matthew Botsch

This article presents arguments and evidence suggesting that the bankruptcy abuse reform (BAR) of 2005 may have been one contributor to the destabilizing surge in subprime foreclosures. Before BAR took effect, overly indebted borrowers could file bankruptcy to free up... View Details

Keywords: Mortgages; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Borrowing and Debt; United States

Read Now

January 2008 (Revised May 2008)
Case

Subprime Meltdown: American Housing and Global Financial Turmoil

By: Julio Rotemberg

This case focuses on the financial difficulties faced in the U.S. from August to December 2006 as well as their roots in subprime lending. After briefly discussing how mortgages were structured and traded in the pre-1990 period, it describes subprime mortgage lending,... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Central Banking; Financial Markets; Mortgages; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; United States

October 2008 (Revised August 2009)
Case

Subprime Crisis and Fair-Value Accounting

By: Paul M. Healy, Krishna G. Palepu and George Serafeim

This case examines the challenges in implementing fair value accounting for mortgage instruments, the role of accounting in the sub-prime crisis, and proposals for revising accounting standards given the crisis. View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Financial Crisis; Debt Securities; Mortgages; Standards

04 Aug 2010
News

A Lonely Crusader

municipal bond insurer, MBIA, is the subject of a new book, Confidence Game. MBIA’s stellar financial performance and rock-solid triple-A rating masked the firm’s growing fragility as it ventured deeper and deeper into insuring collateralized debt obligations brimming... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; subprime mortgages; Finance; Real Estate

Borrowing to Live: Consumer and Mortgage Credit Revisited

Americans are awash in debt. Credit undergirds daily life more than ever before—it is one of the defining aspects of life in the United States today. The damage from a depressed housing market is exacerbated by the subprime lender implosion, sending shock waves... View Details

August 2011
Teaching Note

Subprime Crisis and Fair-Value Accounting (TN)

By: Paul Healy, Krishna G. Palepu and George Serafeim

Teaching Note for 109-031. View Details

Keywords: Fair Value Accounting; Mortgages; Standards; Financial Crisis

May 2008
Teaching Note

Subprime Meltdown: American Housing and Global Financial Turmoil

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

Teaching Note for [708042]. View Details

Keywords: Mortgages; Debt Securities; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Markets; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Central Banking; Policy; United States; Europe

March 2013
Case

NovaStar Financial: A Short Seller's Battle

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Amy Kaser

The NovaStar case describes the challenges faced by short seller Marc Cohodes of hedge fund Rocker Partners as he tried to expose what he thought was widespread fraud in mortgage lender NovaStar Financial. The case is set in the time period from 2001 to 2007 and tracks... View Details

November 2017
Article

Credit-Induced Boom and Bust

By: Marco Di Maggio and Amir Kermani

Can a credit expansion induce a boom and bust in house prices and real economic activity? This paper exploits the federal preemption of national banks in 2004 from local laws against predatory lending to gauge the effect of the supply of credit on the real economy.... View Details

Keywords: Great Recession; Subprime; Credit Supply; Credit Expansion; Household Leverage; Household Debt; Preemption Rule; Mortgages; Laws and Statutes; Credit; Household; Borrowing and Debt; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation

SSRN

Find at Harvard

March 8, 2008
Comment

Marketing Your Way Through a Recession

By: John A. Quelch

The signs of an imminent recession are all around us. The spillover from the subprime mortgage crisis is weakening both consumer confidence and the consumer spending—much of it on credit—that has been buoying the U.S. economy. View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Recession; Products And Sales; Core Values; Fluctuation; Volatility; Economic Growth; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Growth and Development; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Risk and Uncertainty; Salesforce Management; Asia; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America

Read Now

03 Apr 2011
News

Why Red Flags Can Go Unnoticed

June 2010
Case

Cypress Sharpridge: Raising Capital in a Time of Crisis

By: Lena G. Goldberg and Adam Benjamin Nebesar

Cypress Sharpridge, a REIT investing in agency securities, launched its IPO just before the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. The IPO failed. In June 2009, an IPO window seemed to be opening. Should the company try again? CEO Kevin Grant knew that his company's... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital; Financial Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Investment; Leadership; Crisis Management; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry

27 Jan 2011
Working Paper Summaries

A Brief Postwar History of US Consumer Finance

Keywords: by Andrea Ryan, Gunnar Trumbull & Peter Tufano; Banking

May 2008 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Sovereign Wealth Funds: For Profits or Politics?

By: Laura Alfaro and Renee Kim

On March 21, 2008, the U.S. government secured an agreement from two leading sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) to adopt a new set of investment principles to govern the Funds' activities. SWFs, broadly defined as an investment fund owned by a national or a government, were... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Investment Funds; Sovereign Finance; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; International Relations; State Ownership; United States