Measured as yield spreads against AAA corporate bonds, the convenience premium for agency MBS averaged 47 basis points between 1995 and 2021, about half of the long-term-Treasury convenience premium. Both the MBS convenience premium and the issuance amount vary negatively with the mortgage rate,...

This paper examines how the macroeconomic environment affects the determinants of prepayment of mortgage loans from October 2004 to February 2020. For more accurate analysis, the authors define the timing of prepayment not only before the loan maturity but also at the time when 50% or more of...

We study the effects of diverse beliefs on equilibrium securitization under risk neutrality. We provide a simple characterization of the optimal securities. Pooling and tranching of assets emerges in equilibrium as a consequence of the traders' diverse beliefs about asset returns. The issuer of...

The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which addressed strains in the asset-backed securities market, was an unusual crisis facility because it provided loans to a wide range of nonbank financial institutions. Using new, detailed loan-level data, we study whether institutional...

This paper develops a formula to numerically estimate the unsubsidized, fair-market value of the toxic assets purchased with Federal Reserve loans. It finds that subsidy rates on these loans were on average 33.9 percent at origination. In contrast, by the 3rd quarter of the 2010, there was on...

Servicers are less likely to renegotiate delinquent loans in residential MBS pools that are more deeply tranched. A one standard deviation increase in tranching corresponds to a 14 percent decrease in loan modification relative to the mean. In highly tranched pools, servicers pursue fewer...

Using data on over 10 million auto loans from 144 auto asset-backed security (ABS) deals, I find signs of misreporting that are consistent with those found in other forms of ABS (such as RMBS and CMBS). Borrowers/dealers are inflating book values of vehicles to lower LTV and overstating income...

The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which addressed strains in the asset-backed securities market, was an unusual crisis facility because it provided loans to a wide range of nonbank financial institutions. Using new, detailed loan-level data, we study whether institutional...

In response to immense strains in the asset-backed securities market in 2008 and 2020, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury twice launched the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF). TALF was an unusual crisis facility because it provided loans to a wide range of nonbank...

Subprime securitizations were designed to produce safe AAA bonds by insulating them from the risks associated with the underlying mortgages. Yet, they became risky during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. We provide evidence that following the decline in the ABX indices which signaled emerging...

This paper reviews the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market, with a particular emphasis on agency residential MBS in the United States. We discuss the institutional environment, security design, MBS risks and asset pricing, and the economic effects of mortgage securitization. We also assemble...

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 caused widespread economic uncertainty, prompting government officials to act swiftly to combat potentially severe fallout. On March 23, 2020, the Federal Reserve announced a series of monetary policy measures and established several emergency...

Do reputational concerns of financial intermediaries dampen credit booms and busts? Does this hold in the context of mortgage-backed securities? During a credit boom revolving around the securitization of West-Indian plantation-mortgages in the 1760s, high-reputation underwriters virtually...

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the asset-backed securities (ABS) market, resulting in higher spreads on ABS and briefly halting the issuance of some ABS. On March 23, 2020, the Federal Reserve established the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) to support the flow of credit to...

We propose a novel measure of bond market liquidity that does not depend on transaction data: the strength of the cross-sectional relationship between mutual fund cash holdings and fund flow volatility. Our measure captures how liquid funds perceive their portfolio holdings to be at a given...

This paper reviews the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market, with a particular emphasis on agency residential MBS in the United States. We discuss the institutional environment, security design, MBS risks and asset pricing, and the economic effects of mortgage securitization. We also assemble...

In March 2020, massive customer selling of U.S. Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed dealers' capacity to intermediate trades, contributing to a marked deterioration of market functioning. The Federal Reserve promptly took...

We investigate the replenishment of 102 asset-backed securities (ABS) backed by more than 1.7 million small- and medium-sized enterprise loans. Based on our extensive data set from 2012 to 2017 obtained from the first and only central loan-level repository for ABS in Europe, we reveal that loans...

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the asset-backed securities (ABS) market, resulting in higher spreads on ABS and briefly halting the issuance of some ABS. On March 23, 2020, the Federal Reserve established the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) to support the flow of credit to...

Agency mortgage backed securities (MBS) with diverse characteristics are traded in parallel with individualized contracts in the specified pool (SP) market and with standardized contracts in the to-be-announced (TBA) market. We find that this unique parallel trading environment significantly...

The global imbalance explanation of the financial crisis of 2007-09 suggests that demand for riskless assets from countries with current account surpluses created fragility in countries with current account deficits, most notably, in the United States. We examine this explanation by analyzing...

We study the impact that lower complexity in bank securitisations has on mortgage quality before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that mortgages issued after the introduction of the new European regulation in 2018 that aims to reduce deal complexity are characterised by up to 0.10%...

This paper investigates how covenants, intrinsic to Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO) indentures, provide a mechanism through which idiosyncratic shocks may amplify, imposing negative externalities on other unrelated firms in CLO portfolios. Exploiting cross-sectional variation in firms'...

Recent trends in the leveraged loan market towards weaker creditor protection have raised concerns regarding the credit risk of loans originated and then sold to Collateralized Loan Obligations (''CLOs''). Relaxed due diligence on the part of CLO managers in the acquisition and sale of leveraged...

We investigate the replenishment of 102 asset-backed securities (ABS) backed by more than 1.7 million small- and medium-sized enterprise loans. Based on our extensive data set from 2012 to 2017 obtained from the first and only central loan-level repository for ABS in Europe, we reveal that loans...

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the asset-backed securities (ABS) market, resulting in higher spreads on ABS and briefly halting the issuance of some ABS. On March 23, 2020, the Federal Reserve established the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) to support the flow of credit to...

Commercial loan valuations crucially depend on accurate loan income, but underwritten income on CMBS loans is commonly overstated when compared to actual property income. Consistent with these differences being purposeful, income overstatement in 2013 to 2019 CMBS deals varies widely and...

We introduce a novel application of machine learning to compare the Pooling and Servicing Agreements (PSA) that govern asset-backed securities. The PSA is often viewed as mostly boilerplate legal text and thus may appear similar across deals despite heterogeneity in the underlying collateral and...