IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v162y2024ics0304405x24001703.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competition, Product differentiation and Crises: Evidence from 18 million securitized loans

Author

Listed:
  • Haslag, Peter
  • Srinivasan, Kandarp
  • Thakor, Anjan V.

Abstract

RMBS sponsors contributed to the rise of new product features in securitized mortgages prior to the 2008 financial crisis. Using a regulatory shock to sponsor competition , we show securitization influences the design of mortgage contracts, empirically demonstrating a unique, feedback loop of product differentiation from the derived security (MBS) to the underlying asset (loans). Product differentiation in Prime MBS collateral rises faster than that of non-prime in the early boom period (2000–2004), a strategic choice by MBS sponsors in the face of increasing competition. At very high levels of competition, product differentiation targets non-prime (marginal) borrowers. We develop a theoretical framework for sponsor-induced product differentiation that explains these empirical findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Haslag, Peter & Srinivasan, Kandarp & Thakor, Anjan V., 2024. "Competition, Product differentiation and Crises: Evidence from 18 million securitized loans," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:162:y:2024:i:c:s0304405x24001703
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103947
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X24001703
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103947?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vladimir Asriyan & Dana Foarta & Victoria Vanasco, 2023. "The Good, the Bad, and the Complex: Product Design with Imperfect Information," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 187-226, May.
    2. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani & Sanket Korgaonkar, 2019. "Partial Deregulation and Competition: Effects on Risky Mortgage Origination," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4676-4711, October.
    3. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson, 2018. "Shrouded attributes, consumer myopia and information suppression in competitive markets," Chapters, in: Victor J. Tremblay & Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay (ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Industrial Organization, chapter 3, pages 40-74, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Philippe Aghion & Nick Bloom & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Howitt, 2005. "Competition and Innovation: an Inverted-U Relationship," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 701-728.
    5. Carlin, Bruce I., 2009. "Strategic price complexity in retail financial markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 278-287, March.
    6. Amiyatosh Purnanandam, 2011. "Originate-to-distribute Model and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(6), pages 1881-1915.
    7. Leonid Kogan & Dimitris Papanikolaou & Amit Seru & Noah Stoffman, 2017. "Technological Innovation, Resource Allocation, and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 665-712.
    8. Ran Spiegler, 2016. "Choice Complexity and Market Competition," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 1-25, October.
    9. Tomasz Piskorski & Alexei Tchistyi, 2010. "Optimal Mortgage Design," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(8), pages 3098-3140, August.
    10. Dokko, Jane K. & Keys, Benjamin J. & Relihan, Lindsay, 2019. "Affordability, financial innovation and the start of the housing boom," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101017, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Mark J. Garmaise, 2013. "The Attractions and Perils of Flexible Mortgage Lending," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(10), pages 2548-2582.
    12. Kurz, Mordecai, 1994. "On the Structure and Diversity of Rational Beliefs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(6), pages 877-900, October.
    13. Andreas Fuster & Matthew Plosser & Philipp Schnabl & James Vickery, 2019. "The Role of Technology in Mortgage Lending," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1854-1899.
    14. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2001. "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 811-841, August.
    15. Victoria Vanasco, 2017. "The Downside of Asset Screening for Market Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1937-1982, October.
    16. Buchak, Greg & Matvos, Gregor & Piskorski, Tomasz & Seru, Amit, 2018. "Fintech, regulatory arbitrage, and the rise of shadow banks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 453-483.
    17. Joshua L. Krieger & Xuelin Li & Richard T. Thakor, 2022. "Find and Replace: R&D Investment Following the Erosion of Existing Products," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6552-6571, September.
    18. Erik Hurst & Benjamin J. Keys & Amit Seru & Joseph Vavra, 2016. "Regional Redistribution through the US Mortgage Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 2982-3028, October.
    19. Gennaioli, Nicola & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2012. "Neglected risks, financial innovation, and financial fragility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 452-468.
    20. Rüdiger Fahlenbrach & Robert Prilmeier & René M. Stulz, 2012. "This Time Is the Same: Using Bank Performance in 1998 to Explain Bank Performance during the Recent Financial Crisis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(6), pages 2139-2185, December.
    21. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2009. "The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Default Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1449-1496.
    22. Back, Kerry, 1993. "Asymmetric Information and Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 435-472.
    23. Nadauld, Taylor D. & Sherlund, Shane M., 2013. "The impact of securitization on the expansion of subprime credit," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 454-476.
    24. Thakor, Anjan V., 2012. "Incentives to innovate and financial crises," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 130-148.
    25. Ashcraft, Adam B & Gooriah, Kunal & Kermani, Amir, 2019. "Does skin-in-the-game affect security performance?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 333-354.
    26. Benjamin J. Keys & Tanmoy Mukherjee & Amit Seru & Vikrant Vig, 2010. "Did Securitization Lead to Lax Screening? Evidence from Subprime Loans," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 307-362.
    27. Neil Bhutta, 2012. "GSE Activity and Mortgage Supply in Lower-Income and Minority Neighborhoods: The Effect of the Affordable Housing Goals," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 238-261, June.
    28. John M. Griffin & Gonzalo Maturana, 2016. "Editor's Choice Who Facilitated Misreporting in Securitized Loans?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(2), pages 384-419.
    29. João F. Cocco, 2013. "Evidence on the Benefits of Alternative Mortgage Products," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(4), pages 1663-1690, August.
    30. Gabriel, Stuart A. & Rosenthal, Stuart S., 2010. "Do the GSEs expand the supply of mortgage credit? New evidence of crowd out in the secondary mortgage market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 975-986, December.
    31. Ashcraft, Adam B. & Schuermann, Til, 2008. "Understanding the Securitization of Subprime Mortgage Credit," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 2(3), pages 191-309, June.
    32. Arthur Acolin & Xudong An & Susan M. Wachter, 2022. "Lending competition, regulation, and nontraditional mortgages," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(2), pages 340-365, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gene Amromin & Jennifer Huang & Clemens Sialm & Edward Zhong, 2018. "Complex Mortgages [Why don’t lenders renegotiate more home mortgages? Redefaults, self-cures, and securitization]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(6), pages 1975-2007.
    2. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    3. Piskorski, Tomasz & Seru, Amit, 2021. "Debt relief and slow recovery: A decade after Lehman," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1036-1059.
    4. Greg Buchak & Gregor Matvos & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru, 2024. "Beyond the Balance Sheet Model of Banking: Implications for Bank Regulation and Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(2), pages 616-693.
    5. Arthur Acolin & Xudong An & Susan M. Wachter, 2022. "Lending competition, regulation, and nontraditional mortgages," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(2), pages 340-365, June.
    6. W. Scott Frame & Larry Wall & Lawrence J. White, 2018. "Technological Change and Financial Innovation in Banking: Some Implications for FinTech," Working Papers 18-28, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    7. Hibbeln, Martin & Osterkamp, Werner, 2024. "The Impact of Risk Retention on Moral Hazard in the Securitization Market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    8. Toni Ahnert & Martin Kuncl, 2024. "Government Loan Guarantees, Market Liquidity, and Lending Standards," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(7), pages 4502-4532, July.
    9. Lewellen, Stefan & Williams, Emily, 2021. "Did technology contribute to the housing boom? Evidence from MERS," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1244-1261.
    10. Tim Zhang, 2022. "Uniform Mortgage Regulation and Distortion in Capital Allocation [Loan originations and defaults in the mortgage crisis: the role of the middle class]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(4), pages 1011-1050.
    11. Bin Wei & Feng Zhao, 2022. "Racial Disparities in Mortgage Lending: New Evidence Based on Processing Time," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2022-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    12. Harold H. Zhang & Feng Zhao & Xiaofei Zhao, 2024. "Neglected Risks in the Communication of Residential Mortgage‐Backed Securities Offerings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(1), pages 129-172, February.
    13. Deeksha Gupta, 2018. "Too Much Skin-in-the-Game? The Effect of Mortgage Market Concentration on Credit and House Prices," 2018 Meeting Papers 512, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Craig B. Merrill & Taylor D. Nadauld & Philip E. Strahan, 2019. "Final Demand for Structured Finance Securities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 390-412, January.
    15. Andreas Fuster & David Lucca & James Vickery, 2023. "Mortgage-backed securities," Chapters, in: Refet S. Gürkaynak & Jonathan H. Wright (ed.), Research Handbook of Financial Markets, chapter 15, pages 331-357, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru & James Witkin, 2015. "Asset Quality Misrepresentation by Financial Intermediaries: Evidence from the RMBS Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(6), pages 2635-2678, December.
    17. José María Liberti & Mitchell A. Petersen, 2018. "Information: Hard and Soft," NBER Working Papers 25075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Drechsler, Itamar & Savov, Alexi & Schnabl, Philipp, 2022. "How monetary policy shaped the housing boom," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 992-1021.
    19. Abdullah Yavas & Shuang Zhu, 2024. "Misreporting of second liens in portfolio mortgages and privately securitized mortgages," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 52(1), pages 73-109, January.
    20. Ronel Elul & Deeksha Gupta & David K. Musto, 2025. "Concentration in Mortgage Markets: GSE Exposure and Risk-Taking in Uncertain Times," Working Papers 25-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Securitization; Competition; Product differentiation; Mortgage; Financial crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • K2 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:162:y:2024:i:c:s0304405x24001703. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.