Virtually no attention has been paid to the problem of cyclicality in debates over access to mortgage credit, despite its importance as a driver of tight credit. Housing markets are prone to booms accompanied by bubbles in mortgage credit in which lenders cut underwriting standards, leading to...

Our study investigates the role of speculation in real estate cycles. We find that even a simple model of lagged supply response to price changes and speculation is sufficient to generate real estate cycles. Second, the volatility of prices – the biggest purported downside of “speculation”...

This paper addresses the expansion and performance of non-standard mortgage lending products to better understand the impact of such products on borrowers and the financial system. We show that ex ante measured credit risk of these instruments increased and this risk was mispriced. We also...