The Financial Crisis of 2008


Date: 2008   /   Region: Global
Published August 17th, 2016
Ron Rimkus, CFA

The Financial Crisis of 2008 was a historic systemic risk event. Prominent financial institutions collapsed, credit markets seized up, stock markets plunged, and the world entered a severe recession. Although much has been written about the evidence of a financial bubble in the housing and mortgage markets before the Financial Crisis of 2008, far less attention has been devoted to what caused the bubble to form in the first place. This article focuses on the links between policy, economics, and behavior that gave rise to the bubble, whose popping unleashed the Financial Crisis. Perhaps the most notable observation from this analysis is that policy effects can have very long tails—meaning that policy consequences can emerge many years, even decades, after implementation.

Analysis and Commentary

The 2008 financial crisis was complex and had numerous contributing factors. Consequently, many people have misdiagnosed the problem or overemphasized some factors and underemphasized other, more important factors. The sheer volume of factors, some of which cross analytical disciplines, such as macroeconomics and geopolitics, also obfuscate accurate diagnosis of cause and effect. Moreover, there is an interplay among various factors, such as among policy, macroeconomics and microeconomics. Some factors have gained more popularity than others in the media or with particular political cohorts, making existing beliefs about the crisis an impediment to objective analysis. We performed a holistic analysis of the 2008 financial crisis; we focused on identifying the causal factors that led to excesses in the housing, mortgage, and financial markets, rather than on the crisis itself, which we treat as a symptom of larger underlying problems.

By magnitude, four primary causes of the crisis can be identified:

  • The US government push into housing and mortgages
  • Large and growing current account deficits
  • The Fed lowering of interest rates
  • Securitizing of loans

We will first explore these factors from a theoretical perspective, then (in separate subsections below) we will examine them from an empirical perspective. The US government pushed into residential housing with a variety of policy changes that dramatically increased the demand for housing. The policies brought large numbers of low-quality mortgages into the market and, simultaneously, reduced many of the time-tested buffers against financial excess in the system (e.g., required bank capital, required down payments on home purchases, etc.), making the housing market, mortgage market, banking industry, and ultimately, financial markets unstable. Of course, many governments globally (UK, France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Italy, Canada, etc.) had implemented similar policies also exerting similar impact on their respective mortgage and housing markets.

Between 1996 and 2006, the cumulative current account deficit was about $6.1 trillion, with about $1 trillion of that comprising incremental foreign demand for US Treasuries.

The large and growing current account deficits and the Fed’s lowering of interest rates were both policy decisions enacted at various times and in different magnitudes, but both factors materially enhanced demand for credit and housing. From a macroeconomic perspective, these policies conspired to reduce interest rates from what they otherwise might have been thereby lowering mortgage rates as well (which are typically priced off of ten-year US treasuries). Lower mortgage rates, in turn, captured larger areas under the demand curve for housing. As illustrated in the graph below, US Current Account Policy and Federal Reserve Monetary Policy combined to reduce the price of mortgages (mortgage rates) from P1 to P2. Consequently, banks and mortgage brokers were better able to supply mortgages as both short and long term costs of funding declined, shifting supply from Supply 1 to Supply 2.

Recession - Supply and Demand

But the government push into mortgages also exerted significant force on the mortgage industry to expand supply of credit as represented by Supply 3. Likewise, as credit standards were reduced by the suppliers (through so-called NINJA – i.e. “No Income, No Job, No Assets” – loans, down payment assistance, subprime credit standards, etc.) it also shifted the demand curve from Demand 1 to Demand 2. So, at any given price (mortgage rate), a new segment of low-quality borrowers were able to borrow and buy homes shifting the demand curve from Demand 1 to Demand 2. As these policies were put into place and exerted force in the marketplace, the amount of demand that was satisfied ultimately shifted from Q1 to Q4 over a period of about 5 years. This incremental demand for housing helped build up the bubble in home prices. The graph above illustrates how policy influenced the housing bubble in the United States. All other claims of causes for the crisis must be weighed against these factors which shifted supply and demand in large and measurable ways.

Ancillary factors include lax lending standards by banks and mortgage brokers, investors seeking high returns (buying riskier assets) in a low-interest-rate environment (which created demand for subprime MBS), homeowners taking on more expensive and/or riskier mortgages than they could afford, the securitization of subprime loans, and inadequate rating of securities by the rating agencies.

US Government Push into Housing and Mortgages

The US government has made many forays into the housing and mortgage areas throughout its history. The traces of the 2008 housing crisis began in the 1970s with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which eased lending criteria to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of their surrounding communities (particularly low- and moderate-income neighborhoods). The impact of this policy was trivial until the late 1990s, when the United States enacted new policies to accelerate “affordable housing” goals. In 1995, the US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency set target goals for Fannie and Freddie to raise home ownership rates among low-income groups (which significantly expanded the market for subprime borrowers). Beginning in 1996, the Attorney General of the United States issued numerous warnings against officers of banks that didn’t meet government targets for subprime loans. In 1999, Fannie Mae eased origination requirements for lenders. In 2003, Congress passed the American Dream Downpayment Initiative Act, which was intended to subsidize the down payments and closing costs of low-income first-time homebuyers. In 2004, HUD urged Fannie and Freddie to increase their purchases of subprime and so-called Alt-A MBS. In combination, these policies (and others) brought many marginal buyers into the housing market and dramatically shifted the demand curve for housing upward. Because many in this cohort had bad credit, however, these mortgage loans eventually defaulted (on an unprecedented scale). According to Federal Reserve data, low-quality loans (subprime and Alt-A combined) went from 5.6% of the mortgage market in 2000 to 50.5% of the market in 2005. Also according to Federal Reserve data, delinquency rates on single-family residential mortgages averaged about 2.0% from 1995 through 2005; then began to spike in 2006, reaching 11.3% by the first quarter of 2010 (and plateaued there as the various bailout programs began to take effect).

Ironically, this situation is far from the first time the US government has intervened in the housing markets with negative consequences.

When demand for housing grows, development typically grows outward from urban centers. And when development of a city cannot grow outward, it typically grows upward (i.e., by way of high-rise buildings). And when rising demand meets stagnant supply, prices go up. In many localities, national policies were in conflict with local policies and laws. Many US cities (and counties)—for example, Boston, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; San Jose, California; and Phoenix, Arizona—had enacted local ordinances regarding environmental protection, open spaces, growth limits, and so on, that severely restricted housing supply. This restricted supply of housing in these markets occurred at the same time that supply of mortgages and hence demand for housing was rising. The combination of constrained supply and swelling demand in many US cities caused prices to rise sharply. It is no coincidence that these cities and counties are the very same markets that experienced the most dramatic price booms and busts in the housing crisis. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, the San Francisco home price index went from 100 in January 2000 to a peak of 218.12 in June 2006 (up 118% in 5.5 years). Similarly, the Phoenix home price index escalated from 100 in January 2000 to a peak of 227.42 in June 2006 (up 127% in 5.5 years).

Then, by 2011, home prices in many city markets had ceded almost all of the gains made in the boom. For instance, by 2011, San Francisco had returned to an index value of 130—almost all of its gains gone. By 2011, the Phoenix home price index was back where it started at 100—ceding all of its gains. In contrast, cities that did not have local laws that restrict supply, such as Dallas, Texas, did not see a dramatic run-up in home prices. In 2000, the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for Dallas was 100, and by June of 2006, its level was 124.5 (a gain of only 24.5% in 5.5 years). By 2011, the Dallas index had fallen only to about 115—7.6% off its peak.
Ironically, this situation is far from the first time the US government has intervened in the housing markets with negative consequences. During the 1920s, a Republican housing plan was enacted. In the 1930s, a Democratic plan was enacted as part of the New Deal. After World War II, many US programs that enjoyed bipartisan support were enacted. Ultimately, each of them failed; although none as dramatically as the crisis of 2008.

So, all this discussion of policy begs the question: Is policy to blame, then, for the 2008 financial crisis? The short answer is yes, but the long answer is far more nuanced and complicated. In public policy decision making, there is often an interplay between public-sector politicians and private-sector actors. And to be sure, private-sector lobbying for change influenced policy in this case. For instance, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 (i.e. getting rid of the Glass-Steagall Act) effectively eliminated the barriers between investment and commercial banking. This policy was lobbied hard by the industry itself and was led primarily by the major wirehouses, like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. The repeal of Glass Steagall paved the way for the major investment and commercial banks to own subprime mortgage securities. It further paved the way for regulators to push the major banks to own subprime MBS to meet Basel II regulatory objectives. Since it all blew up, however, apparently nobody has stepped up to own their role in the crisis. As the old saying goes, success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. As investors, we must recognize that politicians and others champion their programs’ successes and often avoid blame for their failures.

Large and Growing Current Account Deficits

The second major factor behind the 2008 financial crisis was the rapid escalation in the US current account deficit from 1996 to 2006. Large and growing US current account deficits distorted labor markets, international trade, and asset prices, and eventually they lowered interest rates. This factor is important because the development materially lowered interest rates through a complex process. A current account deficit arises when Country A sends more of its currency to Country B than Country B sends back to Country A (through foreign trade, foreign direct investment, transfers, etc.). In the case of the US during the years preceding the crisis, the surplus countries, such as China, ramped up their holdings of US dollars and used those US dollars to purchase US dollar–denominated assets—primarily, US Treasury securities. Many other “surplus” countries did the same to keep their currency exchange rates from rising against the dollar (which would have made their currency more expensive and, hence, their exports less competitive). Note also that such a run-up of deficits is possible only in the absence of a gold standard. So, the policy analysis must reach all the way back to President Nixon taking the United States off the gold standard in 1971. Clearly, policy impacts can have very long tails.

During the run-up to the crisis of 2008, foreign central banks of surplus countries showed a strong preference for buying the sovereign debt of deficit countries. This preference should be no surprise; it prevents a country’s currency from appreciating, thereby extending the ability of the country to export its goods to deficit countries, such as the United States. This incremental demand for sovereign debt increased sovereign bond prices and, hence, reduced interest rates. The lower interest rates then stimulated the housing and mortgage markets to take on even more debt (capturing more demand).

The US current account grew sharply in the period 1995 – 2006 where it went from being roughly in balance (the country posted a modest deficit of 0.5% of GDP in 1995) to posting a large deficit of more than 6% of GDP in 2006, reaching $800 billion in that year alone (and more rapid escalation came later in the period). Between 1996 and 2006, the cumulative current account deficit was about $6.1 trillion, with about $1 trillion of that comprising incremental foreign demand for US Treasuries. In short, this deficit moved $6 trillion into foreign hands (including China, whose government maintained a peg to the US dollar), and foreign ownership of US Treasuries skyrocketed, just as economic theory predicts. Between 2000 and 2005, foreign ownership of US financial assets increased from about 60% to 80% of GDP (Council of Foreign Relations). Moreover, foreign ownership of US Treasuries increased by about $1 trillion. Hence, growing current account deficits in the United States had a large cumulative impact on the demand for US Treasuries, which led to reduced interest rates.

This phenomenon appears to have been fueled by the so-called Reverse Plaza Accord, in which in April 1995, the Federal Reserve agreed to increase the value of the dollar (relative to the Japanese yen and the German mark), which prevented US deficits from returning to equilibrium. In the subsequent 18 months afterward, the US dollar spiked by approximately 50% relative to the yen and mark. This change in exchange rates marked the turning point in the current account, which had been roughly in balance over the preceding 25 years. The increased foreign demand for Treasuries bid up bond prices and bid down yields (i.e., interest rates).

Some economists suggest that current account balances do not have a discernible impact on interest rates, but it is harder to argue that the large, escalating bid on Treasuries from foreign governments did not have an impact on sovereign bond prices or yields. Moreover, some argue that money simply flows around an economy, so whether US consumers or foreign governments spend it matters little. This analysis misses a key distinction between the local private sector and foreign central banks: Foreign central banks exhibit a strong preference for US Treasuries and so-called low-risk securities, whereas the private sector does not exhibit those same preferences. The impact on interest rates, therefore, is best related to this cumulative incremental foreign demand for US Treasuries relative to what the US public might have demanded had this money stayed inside the United States.

The Fed Lowering of Interest Rates

The third primary cause of the 2008 financial crisis is that the Federal Reserve chose to reduce interest rates to very low levels in the 2001–2005 time frame, thereby expanding credit markets beyond what they would have been on their own.

The combination of the artificially reduced cost of credit (lower mortgage rates) and increased demand for homes (by moving along the demand curve) drove up home prices.

In June of 2000, the US federal funds target rate was 6.5%. By June 2003, in response to the collapse of the technology bubble, the Fed had reduced the federal funds rate to 1.0%. As foreign trade flows with low-cost deficit countries such as China grew, the Greenspan Federal Reserve publicly discussed worries about the United States importing deflation from these countries. For that reason, the Fed then raised rates slowly throughout 2004, 2005, and 2006. Lowering interest rates on the front end of the cycle stimulated the funding of mortgages by banks, enabling the market to clear at a point farther out on the demand curve and capturing more of the demand than would be possible at a higher price (more movement along the demand curve). This development was unsustainable because interventions in markets force industries to clear at volumes and prices that are materially different from where they would clear if the public were allowed to choose the supply and demand freely on their own. The result was mal-investment in the housing market. The combination of the artificially reduced cost of credit (lower mortgage rates) and increased demand for homes (by moving along the demand curve) drove up home prices.

Securitizing of Loans

The fourth primary cause of the crisis was the proliferation of securitization (i.e. the slicing up of a group of loans and selling them as securities to investors). Securitizing loans (particularly the second-level securitization of equity tranches) effectively removed much, if not all, of the direct exposure many lenders had to the loans they originated (although securitization contracts often have provisions for bad loans to be put back to the lender). This phenomenon created incentives for banks to pursue loan volume without regard to loan quality. Securitizations were initially designed so that lenders would maintain exposure to the performance of the loan pool by owning securities that experienced the first losses of the loan pool. This step helped align the incentives for the investors in the MBS with those of the lenders. In the early 2000s, however, securitization was taken to an extreme whereby many lenders sold off virtually all direct exposure to the underlying performance of loans. Of particular concern was the securitization of the equity tranches of other primary securitizations. This process enabled mortgage lenders to effectively remove all exposure to the performance of a given loan pool. Hence, these incentives caused many lenders to shift focus away from owning mortgages for the life of the loan to growing loan volumes which earned fees at origination. Without exposure to loan losses, lenders’ incentives were now in conflict with the interests of MBS investors, which created material agency costs. Pursuing these incentives, many lenders produced massive amounts of low-quality mortgage loans. The loans enhanced short-term performance for the bank but amplified long-term pain for the banking system. This explosion in subprime MBS dramatically increased demand for homes, weakened bank balance sheets, and because many of the loans were sold globally in securitizations, ensured that large numbers of financial institutions were interconnected when the underlying pool of loans went sour.

Other Elements

The adage that home prices “haven’t declined on a national basis since the Great Depression” was widely repeated even before the 2008 collapse. It was embraced by investors, borrowers, lenders, policy makers, credit-rating agencies, and others. The suggestion that home prices wouldn’t decline enhanced the perception that investments in real estate and MBS were safe. This false presumption was compounded by AAA ratings from rating agencies on subprime MBS and structured notes (such as CDOs), which helped legitimize the whole debacle.

The reliance on ratings from the major rating agencies stretched back many decades. Many bond issuers were required by law to have ratings from the rating agencies. Financial regulatory policies such as Basel II pushed banks to own highly rated securities, such as AA and AAA rated MBS. For instance, MBS rated AA or AAA had a capital requirement of only 2 cents on the dollar (i.e., leverage of 50 to 1). And in 2004, the SEC adopted provisions of Basel II in its regulatory framework for large Wall Street investment banks. In practice, these regulatory frameworks created incentives for investment and commercial banks to own highly rated MBS (regardless of whether or not they deserved the high rating).

Moreover, the nature of securitization meant that one bad loan pool could be owned by many institutions; that is, many institutions were connected to the same bad loans. Given that US subprime mortgage loans reached $1.3 trillion in outstanding balances by 2006, a large number of institutions across the globe owned these faulty subprime MBS. Because of the use of leverage in both commercial and investment banking and ongoing reliance on external funding (deposits, repurchase agreements, loans, etc.), these firms were already interconnected. Large numbers of commercial and investment banks that owned the toxic MBS ended up insolvent. Because the failure of an unhealthy bank can lead to the failure of an otherwise healthy one, the crisis was systemic.

The Unfolding Systemic Crisis

As subprime loans began to sour in early 2007, prices of subprime MBS began to fall, forcing a few high-profile hedge funds out of business (e.g., Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Fund and Enhanced Leverage Fund in June 2007) and drying up liquidity. The contagion then spread to prime MBS and other asset-backed markets, including money market funds (e.g., the Reserve Primary Fund), to bank funding markets, and finally, to commercial and investment banks. The bust was both a liquidity crisis and a solvency crisis: The collapse in home prices meant that the collateral for many MBS was inadequate and, therefore, worth less than loan obligations they backed (if not completely worthless). The underlying real estate was also in crisis, with many homes selling at prices below their mortgage values. The widespread ownership of collapsing residential MBS meant that the financial institutions that owned them were quickly approaching insolvency. As a result of the cross-ownership of asset-backed securities of all types within financial institutions, the insolvency of some institutions also translated into the insolvency of others that had not necessarily invested in these toxic assets. The Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, and other government agencies scrambled to create emergency programs to arrest the deepening crisis, but without result. The crisis reached its apex in the collapse and complete failure of Lehman Brothers on 15 September 2008. Upon its collapse, bank funding lines, letters of credit, and international trade lines froze around the world. In short, the global financial system was in a complete state of chaos.

In combination, the factors greatly increased systemic risk. The expanded leverage in the private sector made the downside of the business cycle more costly than in the past. The reduced lending standards, smaller down payments, and lighter capital at banks reduced the controls in the financial system. Finally, the packaging and selling of bad loans through securitization proliferated expanding the interconnectedness of the entire system globally. These three pillars of systemic risk (leverage, buffers and interconnectedness) worked in concert to take down the global financial system when the subprime loan market failed. The systemic nature of this event was evident in the seizure of countless markets in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse in September of 2008. Large and diverse pieces of the financial system crumbled in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Note that the liquidity crisis that materialized in 2008 was merely a symptom of a much more serious solvency crisis.

In the United States alone, the Fed’s balance sheet expanded from some $850 billion before the crisis to $4.4 trillion today—all on the back of freshly printed money.

Governments around the world unleashed desperate attempts to save the system. Through programs (e.g., the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, the Commercial Paper Funding Facility), the discount window, and single-tranche open market operations, the Federal Reserve extended $16 trillion in support for global financial markets. Over the ensuing months and years, central banks around the world launched massive quantitative easing (printing of money) programs, which dramatically expanded the balance sheets of these institutions with newly printed money and purchased a variety of assets—especially troubled MBS. These actions brought both benefits and drawbacks. On the positive side, the actions did, in fact, arrest the decline in markets and restore stability to the system. These same actions prevented the various markets, however, from correcting the imbalances. The large imbalances that remain have put consistent downward pressure on developed economies worldwide. This downward pressure on the economy has been met with an ongoing monetary policy response in the form of continued low interest rates and quantitative easing. In the United States alone, the Fed’s balance sheet expanded from some $850 billion before the crisis to $4.4 trillion today—all on the back of freshly printed money. The monetary spigot has flowed into the stock and bond markets around the world and reflated them. Governments and the private sector have taken advantage of low rates to take on even more debt, however, and many of the same programs that channeled loans to low-quality borrowers remain. As of this writing, the story is far from over because the problems that were arrested in the aftermath of the crisis are in a state of stasis and new problems have been added on top of the old. The buffers in the financial system have been improved, but the rescue and stimulus programs themselves have shifted more risk from the private sector to government finances, currencies, prospective inflation, and new asset bubbles.

Some popular explanations for the 2008 financial crisis do not stand up under scrutiny. For instance, many analysts of the crisis have said, or implied, that the root of the crisis was greedy lenders that threw caution to the wind in pursuit of profit. To be sure, some lenders appear to have thrown caution to the wind and acted recklessly with business practices. But pinning the blame on greed overstates the case. For starters, the greed hypothesis does not address the four central causes discussed here. Consider how much of the bubble came from banks’ needs to meet the government’s affordable housing goals and the effort to get those low-quality loans off their books by selling them. How much came from the incentives of low interest rates? How much came from competition for business? How much came from policy events like the passing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which diminished the wall between commercial and investment banks? How much came from rule changes at the SEC that let large banks carry less capital? How much came from banks’ ability to sell off tranches of loan pools that effectively removed all exposure to a given loan pool from their balance sheet? However much or little greed was present before the crisis, it is unlikely that it could have been exploited without the combination of policy events detailed here.

That having been said, one factor was the willingness of lenders to make loans to borrowers with small down payments, poor credit history, and little documentation. Such lending practices, for whatever reason they were created, reduced the buffers that were necessary for the smooth operation of the financial system. In addition, selling those loans through securitization conduits helped the lenders make money off of the origination and limited their exposure to the repayment risk, creating an incentive problem at the lender level. Clearly, some lenders were influenced by this incentive, and many cases occurred of lenders aggressively pushing the envelope to drive volume with little regard for quality. Examples are Countrywide, Citigroup, and Washington Mutual. The growth in subprime lending maps closely, however, to the various regulatory moves made by the federal government to increase mortgage lending to low-income buyers. Changes in housing policy put in place by the various federal regulatory bodies and agencies (e.g., HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) and the Attorney General preceded the changes in the amount of subprime lending. These were the very agencies that regulated the lenders in question.

Another popular myth is that lender fraud drove the housing crisis. This argument fails to explain, however, how fraud drove home prices upward. Fraud cases generally create selling pressure in the market within months of origination. Fraud cannot explain the rapid increase in home prices in many markets. The MBS conduits did present an opportunity for banks to pass risk onto others. Like insurance and reinsurance, however, many banks kept the first loss position by owning equity tranches as well as some of their own MBS while the owners of the MBS held the second loss positions (as in reinsurance). Had these institutions fully understood the risks to the housing market and been committing fraud, why would they have retained any of these securities on their balance sheets? Evidently, many commercial banks apparently expected housing prices to remain resilient as they had over the preceding 70 years or so. To be sure, many originators were aggressive with their risk profiles, but to cite greed as the primary cause of the crisis ignores the long list of events detailed here that had large and measurable impacts on interest rates, housing prices, and credit quality. In the end, analysis with facts confirms what we would expect from theory.

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Timeline

Background

  • 1971: President Richard Nixon, departing from the gold exchange standard, embraces fiat money.
  • 1977: US Community Reinvestment Act is passed, setting forth goals for home ownership among low- and moderate-income groups.
  • 1995: The US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency sets target goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to raise home ownership rates among low- and moderate-income groups (which significantly expands the market for subprime borrowers).
  • April 1995: The Reverse Plaza Accord is established to reduce the value of the yen and the German mark and increase the value of the US dollar.
  • 1996: The Attorney General of the United States issues numerous warnings against officers of banks that do not meet government targets for subprime loans.
  • 1999: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is enacted repealing much of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, removing the wall between investment and commercial banks and paving the way for them to own mortgage-backed securities (MBS).
  • 1999: Fannie Mae eases origination requirements for lenders.
  • 2000: Subprime and so-called Alt-A mortgages (low documentation mortgages) reach 5.5% of total mortgage originations in the United States (Federal Reserve Data).
  • 2001: The Federal Reserve Board embarks on a series of sharp rate cuts in the wake of the Technology Bubble collapse.
  • 2003: Congress passes the American Dream Downpayment Act to subsidize the down payments and closing costs of low-income first-time homebuyers.
  • 2003: Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan lowers the interest rate to 1%. From 2003 to 2007, subprime mortgages increase 292% as the private sector increasingly enters the mortgage bond market.
  • 2004: The US SEC adopts provisions of Basel II in its regulatory framework for large Wall Street investment banks which creates further incentives to own MBS. HUD urges Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase their purchases of subprime and Alt-A MBS on the assumption that housing prices will continue to rise. Many major financial institutions begin issuing debt on and investing in MBS. Homeownership rates peak at 69.2%.
  • January 2005: Federal Reserve Board Governor Edward Gramlich notes that mortgage brokers lack incentives for careful underwriting, leaving the subprime industry vulnerable to breakdown.
  • 2005: Yale economist Robert Shiller warns against a housing bubble but is ignored.
  • October 2005: National median housing prices decline 3.3%.
  • January 2006: American International Group (AIG) stops selling credit default swaps (i.e., protection against collateralized debt obligations or CDOs).
  • 2006: Subprime and Alt-A mortgage originations exceed 50% of total originations.
  • 2007: As defaults on subprime loans escalate, several subprime lenders declare bankruptcy, including Accredited Home Lenders Holding, New Century Financial, and American Home Mortgage. Subprime mortgages are estimated at $1.3 trillion.
  • 6 March 2007: Ben Bernanke, then-chairman of the Federal Reserve suggests that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been a source of “systemic risk.”
  • 7 June 2007: Bear Stearns informs investors in its CDO hedge funds that it is halting redemptions; two weeks later, these hedge funds implode.
  • 19 July 2007: The Dow closes above 14,000, a new all-time record.
  • 7 August 2007: In one of the first instances of the subprime crisis spilling over into other businesses, certain hedge funds begin to experience unprecedented losses as a liquidity crisis emerges.
  • 9 August 2007: BNP Paribas suspends three funds invested in subprime mortgages because of the sudden lack of liquidity.
  • 10 August 2007: The Fed injects $43 billion into the economy to boost liquidity. The European Central Bank subsequently injects €156 billion, and the Bank of Japan injects ¥1 trillion.
  • 17 August 2007: The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) cuts the federal funds rate from 6.25% to 5.75%.
  • 7 September 2007: Nonfarm payroll is seen to have fallen by 4,000 the prior month, signaling the first month of negative job growth.
  • 18 September 2007: The FOMC further cuts the federal funds rate—by 50 basis points (bps) to 4.75%.
  • 15 October 2007: A group of US banks announces a “super fund” of $100 billion to purchase struggling MBS securities whose value had plummeted in August.
  • 31 October 2007: The FOMC further reduces the federal funds rate to 4.5%.
  • 6 December 2007: President George W. Bush announces a plan to freeze the mortgages of a number of mortgage debtors holding adjustable-rate mortgages.
  • 2 January 2008: The stock market begins to plummet.
  • 11 January 2008: Bank of America announces it will purchase Countrywide Financial for $4 billion.
  • 18 January 2008: Fitch Ratings downgrades Ambac Financial Group, one of the main providers of financial guarantee products, such as bond insurance, from AAA to AA.
  • 30 January 2008: The FOMC reduces the federal funds rate 50 bps—to 3%.

Central Events

  • 10 March 2008: The Dow Jones Industrial Average hits its lowest level since October 2006, 20% off its peak five months prior.
  • 14 March 2008: Bear Stearns begins receiving federal bailout funding as shares plummet.
  • 16 March 2008: JP Morgan Chase acquires Bear Stearns for $2 a share to avoid a Bear Stearns bankruptcy.
  • 18 March 2008: The FOMC reduces the federal funds rate another 75 bps—to 2.25%.
  • 30 April 2008: The FOMC votes to further reduce the federal funds rate 25 bps—to 2%.
  • 25 June 2008: The FOMC votes to maintain the 2% federal funds rate.
  • 15 July 2008: The SEC temporarily bans short selling of securities from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and primary dealers at commercial and investment banks.
  • 17 July 2008: Major financial institutions report losses in MBS of about $435 billion.
  • 30 July 2008: President Bush signs the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.
  • 5 August 2008: The FOMC votes to maintain the 2% federal funds rate.
  • 7 September 2008: The federal government nationalizes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, creating panic on Wall Street.
  • 14 September 2008: Merrill Lynch is sold to Bank of America for $50 billion.
  • 15 September 2008: Lehman Brothers files for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
  • 16 September 2008: AIG to receive $85 billion from the Fed to avoid bankruptcy.
  • 18 September 2008: The Federal Reserve increases existing swap lines by $180 billion and creates new swap lines with Bank of Canada, Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan (e.g., foreign borrowers who had borrowed short term funds in US dollars needed to borrow more US dollars to refinance existing loans, else repay the balance in full).
  • 19 September 2008: The Fed announces the creation of the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF) to stop the run on money market funds. The Fed also announces plans to purchase short-term discount notes issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Federal Home Loan Banks from primary dealers.
  • 21 September 2008: The Fed approves Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as bank holding companies.
  • 25 September 2008: Washington Mutual is sold to JPM Chase for $1.9 billion.
  • 29 September 2008: Citigroup announces it is seeking to acquire Wachovia. Also, the FOMC authorizes a $330 billion expansion of swap lines with the Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, Danmarks Nationalbank, European Central Bank, Norges Bank, Reserve Bank of Australia, Sveriges Riksbank, and Swiss National Bank. The total is $620 billion in swap lines (once again to finance a massive amount of dollar borrowers).
  • 3 October 2008: President Bush signs the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, creating the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Also, Wells Fargo successfully makes a better offer than Citigroup to acquire troubled Wachovia.
  • 6 October 2008: The Fed announces it will provide $900 billion in short-term cash loans to banks.
  • 7 October 2008: The Fed begins lending $1.3 trillion directly to companies outside the financial industry and announces the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) to support US based commercial paper issuers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announces an increase in deposit insurance coverage to $250,000 per depositor.
  • 8 October 2008: Central banks make a global, coordinated effort to cut rates; the Fed reduces its emergency lending rate to banks to 1.75% and the federal funds rate to 1.5%.
  • 10 October 2008: The Dow Jones Industrial Average loses 18% in a single week of trading.
  • 14 October 2008: The Fed, invoking the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, injects $250 billion into the US banking system. As a result, the federal government takes positions in, among others, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York Mellon, and State Street.
  • 21 October 2008: The federal government announces it will purchase $540 billion in short-term debt from money market mutual funds.
  • 29 October 2008: The FOMC reduces the federal funds rate 50 bps—to 1.00%.
  • 12 November 2008: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson agrees that the United States will buy $290 billion of toxic assets under the TARP; the remaining $410 billion is to be spent on recapitalizing financial companies.
  • 14 November 2008: The Treasury purchases $33.5 billion in preferred stock in 21 US banks under the Capital Purchase Program. The Eurozone officially enters a recession.
  • 16 November 2008: Japan officially enters recession.
  • 17 November 2008: Subprime lenders Lincoln National, Hartford Financial Services Group, and Genworth Financial seek TARP funding.
  • 18 November 2008: Testifying before Congress, executives of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler request access to the TARP for federal loans.
  • 24 November 2008: The federal government agrees to rescue Citigroup for $45 billion after the stock price plummets 60%.
  • 25 November 2008: The US federal government pledges an additional $800 billion to revive the financial system. A majority of the money goes to purchasing mortgage bonds used by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or the Federal Home Loan Banks. Also, the Fed announces the creation of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which could lend up to $200 billion on a nonrecourse basis to holders of AAA-rated asset-backed securities and recently originated consumer and small business loans.
  • 1 December 2008: The National Bureau of Economic Research declares the United States has entered a recession; the Labor Department reports that the United States lost 533,000 jobs in November, bringing the unemployment rate to 6.7%.
  • 11 December 2008: As a result of the dramatic market sell-off, redemptions from investors spike dramatically, ensnaring Bernie Madoff. He is arrested for his $50 billion Ponzi scheme. (See also Madoff Crisis)
  • 16 December 2008: The FOMC votes to lower the federal funds rate to 0%–0.25%.
  • 19 December 2008: The US Treasury authorizes up to $13.4 billion in loans for General Motors and $4.0 billion for Chrysler from the TARP.
  • 5 January 2009: The Fed begins purchasing fixed-rate MBS guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  • 16 January 2009: The Treasury, Fed, and FDIC arrange guarantees, liquidity access, and capital as a backstop for Bank of America. The Treasury invests $20 billion directly in Bank of America from the TARP in exchange for preferred stock. Also, the Treasury lends $1.5 billion from the TARP to Chrysler Financial to finance new consumer auto loans.
  • 30 January 2009: The Treasury purchases $1.15 billion in preferred stock from 42 US banks under the Capital Purchase Program.
  • 13 February 2009: Congress passes the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion stimulus package to save jobs and stimulate the economy.
  • 18 February 2009: President Obama unveils a $75 billion mortgage relief plan aimed to help homeowners with “underwater” mortgages at risk of default and foreclosure.
  • 9 March 2009: The Dow Jones Industrial Average hits the low point of the recession at 6,547; 54% below its 9 October 2007 high.
  • 30 April 2009: Chrysler files for bankruptcy protection.
  • 1 June 2009: General Motors files for bankruptcy protection and closes 14 US plants.
  • June 2009: The recession officially ends after 18 months, making it the longest downturn in post–World War II history.

Aftermath

  • October 2009: Unemployment peaks at 10.2%.
  • 2009 – 2014: The Federal Reserve releases unprecedented policy measures to support the financial system, including massive quantitative easing expanding the Fed’s balance sheet by $3.5 trillion between 2009 and 2014.
  • 21 July 2010: Obama signs into law the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a sweeping reform of the financial system.
  • December 2010: Yearly home foreclosures peak at 2.9 million properties.
  • 4 March 2011: Unemployment reported for month of February to fall below 9%.
  • 5 August 2011: Standard & Poor’s downgrades the United States from AAA to AA+.
  • 7 September 2012: Unemployment for August fall to 8.1%, the lowest point since January 2009.
  • 2 August 2013: The Dow Jones Industrial Average hits a new high of 15,658.

Investment Principles

Principle #1

Policy should be viewed in the context of how it affects supply, demand, costs, pricing and incentives; how it can create consequences many years removed from implementation; and how different policies can either offset each other or work in tandem to amplify their impact.

Principle #2

Government interventions can create unsustainable economic imbalances as well as alleviate a crisis through bailouts and targeted injections of liquidity.

Principle #3

Leverage, buffers, and interconnectedness are the three pillars of systemic risk.

Principle #4

Popular memes, particularly those validated by authority figures, can distort the perception of millions of participants in the market.

Principle #5

Blend analysis with facts to confirm or refute what is suggested by theory.

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Sources

A Snapshot of the Subprime Market.” 2007 (28 November). Center for Responsible Lending.

Allen, Franklin, and Elena Carletti. 2010. “An Overview of the Crisis: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions.” International Review of Finance, vol. 10, no. 1 (March): 1–26. 

Anderson, Richard G., and Charles S. Gascon. “The Commercial Paper Market, the Fed, and the 2007–2009 Financial Crisis.” 2009. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, vol. 91, no. 6 (November/December): 589–612.

Blanchard, Olivier J., David Romer, A. Michael Spence, and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 2012. In the Wake of the Crisis: Leading Economists Reassess Economic Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Carmassi, Jacopo, Daniel Gros, and Stefano MicossiI. 2009. “The Global Financial Crisis: Causes and Cures.” Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 47, no. 5 (November): 977–996. 

Cowen, Tyler. 2009. “A Simple Theory of the Financial Crisis; or, Why Fischer Black Still Matters.” Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 65, no. 3 (May/June): 17–20.

Diamond, Douglas W, and Raghuram G. Rajan. 2009. “The Credit Crisis: Conjectures about Causes and Remedies.” American Economic Review, vol. 99, no. 2 (May): 606–610. 

Durden, Tyler. 2011. “Federal Reserve Balance Sheet Update: Week of January 26 – $1.129 Trillion In UST Holdings.Zero Hedge (28 January).

Ely, Bert. 2009. “Bad Rules Produce Bad Outcomes: Underlying Public-Policy Causes of the U.S. Financial Crisis.” CATO Journal, vol. 29, no. 1 (Winter): 93–114.

Fackler, Martin. “Japan’s Economy, World’s Second Largest, Is in Recession.” 2008. The New York Times (16 November).

Foster, John Bellamy, and Fred Magdoff. 2009. The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Hawley, James P., Shyam J. Kamath, and Andrew T. Williams, eds. 2011. Corporate Governance Failures: The Role of Institutional Investors in the Global Financial Crisis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Jacobs, Bruce I. “Tumbling Tower of Babel: Subprime Securitization and the Credit Crisis.” Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 65, no. 2 (March/April 2009): 17–30.

Lewis, Victor, Kenneth D. Kay, Chandrika Kelso, and James Larson. 2010. “Was the 2008 Financial Crisis Caused by a Lack of Corporate Ethics?” Global Journal of Business Research, vol. 4, no. 2: 77–84.

Lo, Andrew W. 2008. “Hedge Funds, Systemic Risk, and the Financial Crisis of 2007–2008.” Written testimony of Andrew W. Lo, prepared for the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Hearing on Hedge Funds (13 November).

McKibbin, Warwick J., and Andrew Stoeckel. 2010. “The Global Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences.” Asian Economic Papers, vol. 9, no. 1 (Winter): 54–86. 

Poole, William. 2010. “Causes and Consequences of the Financial Crisis of 2007–2009.” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. 33, no. 2 (Spring): 421–441. 

Reavis, Cate. 2012. “The Global Financial Crisis of 2008: The Role of Greed, Fear, and Oligarchs.” Working Paper 09-093, MIT Sloan School of Management (16 March, revision).

Report to Congress 2008.” Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Roll, Richard. 2011. “The Possible Misdiagnosis of a Crisis.” Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 67, no. 2 (March/April): 12–17.

Scott, Kenneth E. 2010. “The Financial Crisis: Causes and Lessons.” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, vol. 22, no. 3 (Summer): 22–29. 

Sepe, Simone M. 2012. “Regulating Risk and Governance in Banks: A Contractarian Perspective.” Emory Law Journal, vol. 62, no. 2: 327–406.

Stone, Michael E. 2009.”Housing and the Financial Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures.” Housing Finance International, vol. 24, no. 1 (September): 34–39.

Suetin, A. 2009. “Causes of the Current Financial Crisis.” Problems of Economic Transition, vol. 52, no. 3 (July): 44–58.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report. 2011. Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States.” Working paper, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (25 February).

Wagner, Helmut. 2010.”The Causes of the Recent Financial Crisis and the Role of the Central Banks in Avoiding the Next One.” International Economics & Economic Policy, vol. 7, no. 1: 63–82. 

Additional Reading

Financial Crash Five Years Later: A Timeline of Key Events in the Great Recession.” 2008 (16 March).

Kuntz, Phil, and Bob Ivry. 2011. “Fed’s Once-Secret Data Compiled by Bloomberg Released to Public” (23 December).

The Financial Crisis.” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Timeline on the Great Recession.” 2013. Christian Science Monitor (8 September).

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