John Duca, Deputy President of the Dallas Fed, spoke to PEFM in Balliol College on October 9 on macroprudential policy and the financial crisis. In his presentation Duca challenged the Rogov and Reinhart thesis that crises are caused by excessive build-ups of debt, arguing that crises are much more related to real estate booms and busts. These in turn were generated by massive relaxation of regulatory requirements in the period up to the crisis.
Duca argued that price trends in the US commercial and residential real estate markets are usually distinct, but unusually they were both booming in the run up to the crisis. He ascribed this to not only the well-known pervasiveness of low interest rates but, as importantly, the marked reduction in prudential requirements, as enforced through the risk-weighting on capital requirements, and the regulatory environment more generally. There was an underappreciation of the risks, particularly the tail risks, with no recognition of inter-connectedness. There was an illusion that mortgage-backed securities (MBS) were safe.
Until around 2000, the US financial system was regulated through a series of provisions largely enacted after the Great Depression. In 2000 it became possible to protect MBS through credit-default swaps; the market took when, under the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, derivatives contracts were to be honored before regular contracts in bankruptcy. As regards sub-prime mortgages, investors thought they were getting short term investment grade assets, when in fact they were getting junk. In 2004 capital requirements on banks were 8%, but risk-weights on bank holdings of MBS were slashed, so that the effective rate became just 1.6%. Issuances of MBS soared into the stratosphere.