Shadow Bank and Fintech Mortgage Securitization (preprint)

Agency MBS issuers can choose among three securitization venues: individual securitization where an issuer uses her own loans to create an MBS, collective securitization where different issuers deliver loans into a common MBS, and cash window where issuers receive immediate cash payment by selling loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, who then conduct securitization. We find that issuers with greater immediate liquidity needs (e.g., smaller issuers and shadow banks) have a larger fraction of their loans securitized through cash window. The uniform pricing feature of collective securitization results in cross-subsidy from traditional banks, who have relatively high-value loans, to shadow banks, especially fintech issuers, who have relatively low-value loans; hence, shadow banks and traditional banks prefer collective and individual securitization, respectively. We further show that securitization venues affect the quality and quantity of loans that issuers securitize, using Fannie Mae's policy shock on collective securitization and the COVID-19 shock on cash window.

Dealers and the Dealer of Last Resort: Evidence from MBS Markets in the COVID-19 Crisis (preprint)

We study price dislocations and liquidity provision by dealers and the Federal Reserve (Fed) as the “dealer of last resort” in agency MBS markets during the COVID-19 crisis. As customers sold MBS to “scramble for cash,” dealers provided liquidity by taking inventory in the cash market and hedging inventory risk in the forward market. The cash and forward prices diverged significantly beyond the difference in the quality of MBS traded on the two markets. The Fed first facilitated dealers’ inventory hedging and then took holdings off dealers’ inventory directly. The price dislocations began to revert only after the Fed’s latter action, when customer selling was still strong.

Unconventional Monetary Policy and Disaster Risk: Evidence from the Subprime and COVID-19 Crises (preprint)

We contrast the interventions conducted by the Federal Reserve in response to the subprime and COVID-19 crises with respect to their effectiveness in reducing disaster risk. Using model-free measures of disaster risk derived from daily options data, we document that interventions in response to both crises reduced tail risks in domestic equity markets. Spillover effects are notably distinct. While the subprime interventions are generally characterized by negative spillovers to international equity markets, the responses to the COVID--19 crisis are generally associated with positive spillovers. We interpret these results as consistent with different degrees of protagonism played by Central Banks in the two episodes, emphasizing the importance of a broader participation of monetary authorities in expanding their balance sheets to counteract the effects of major crises.