IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jmoncb/v44y2012i2-3p367-384.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Credit Booms and Lending Standards: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Market

Author

Listed:
  • GIOVANNI DELL’ARICCIA
  • DENIZ IGAN
  • LUC LAEVEN

Abstract

This paper links the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis to demand‐side factors that contributed to the rapid expansion of the U.S. mortgage market. We show that denial rates were relatively lower in areas that experienced faster credit demand growth and that lenders in these high‐growth areas attached less weight to applicants’ loan‐to‐income ratios. The results are robust to controlling for supply‐side factors, including house price appreciation, mortgage securitization, and other economic fundamentals, and to several robustness tests controlling for endogeneity. The results are consistent with the notion that a relaxation of lending standards, triggered by an increased demand for loans, contributed to the boom and the ensuing crisis, together with other supply‐side explanations. These findings shed new light on the relationship between credit booms and financial instability.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Dell’Ariccia & Deniz Igan & Luc Laeven, 2012. "Credit Booms and Lending Standards: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(2‐3), pages 367-384, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jmoncb:v:44:y:2012:i:2-3:p:367-384
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1538-4616.2011.00491.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2011.00491.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2011.00491.x?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pagano, Marco & Jappelli, Tullio, 1993. "Information Sharing in Credit Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1693-1718, December.
    2. Charles Himmelberg & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2005. "Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 67-92, Fall.
    3. Adrian, Tobias & Shin, Hyun Song, 2010. "Liquidity and leverage," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 418-437, July.
    4. Raddatz, Claudio, 2006. "Liquidity needs and vulnerability to financial underdevelopment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 677-722, June.
    5. Lown, Cara & Morgan, Donald P., 2006. "The Credit Cycle and the Business Cycle: New Findings Using the Loan Officer Opinion Survey," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(6), pages 1575-1597, September.
    6. Keeley, Michael C, 1990. "Deposit Insurance, Risk, and Market Power in Banking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1183-1200, December.
    7. John Y. Campbell & João F. Cocco, 2003. "Household Risk Management and Optimal Mortgage Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1449-1494.
    8. Caballero, Ricardo J. & Krishnamurthy, Arvind, 2006. "Bubbles and capital flow volatility: Causes and risk management," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 35-53, January.
    9. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Rodrigo Valdes & Oscar Landerretche, 2001. "Lending Booms: Latin America and the World," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 47-100, January.
    10. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Aaron Tornell & Andrés Velasco, 1996. "Financial Crises in Emerging Markets: The Lessons from 1995," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 147-216.
    11. John H. Boyd & Gianni De Nicoló, 2005. "The Theory of Bank Risk Taking and Competition Revisited," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1329-1343, June.
    12. G. B. Gorton & Ping He, 2008. "Bank Credit Cycles," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1181-1214.
    13. Berger, Allen N. & Udell, Gregory F., 2004. "The institutional memory hypothesis and the procyclicality of bank lending behavior," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 458-495, October.
    14. Gabriel Jiménez & Jesús Saurina, 2006. "Credit Cycles, Credit Risk, and Prudential Regulation," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(2), May.
    15. Genesove, David & Mayer, Christopher J, 1997. "Equity and Time to Sale in the Real Estate Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 255-269, June.
    16. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Is the 2007 US Sub-Prime Financial Crisis So Different?: An International Historical Comparison," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 56(3), pages 291-299.
    17. Martin Ruckes, 2004. "Bank Competition and Credit Standards," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(4), pages 1073-1102.
    18. Eric S. Rosengren & Joe Peek, 2000. "Collateral Damage: Effects of the Japanese Bank Crisis on Real Activity in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 30-45, March.
    19. Charles W. Calomiris & Joseph R. Mason, 2003. "Consequences of Bank Distress During the Great Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 937-947, June.
    20. Giovanni Dell’Ariccia & Deniz Igan & Luc Laeven, 2012. "Credit Booms and Lending Standards: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(2‐3), pages 367-384, March.
    21. Yongheng Deng & John M. Quigley & Robert Van Order, 2000. "Mortgage Terminations, Heterogeneity and the Exercise of Mortgage Options," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 275-308, March.
    22. Yuliya Demyanyk & Otto van Hemert, 2007. "Understanding the subprime mortgage crisis," Supervisory Policy Analysis Working Papers 2007-05, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    23. Kroszner, Randall S. & Laeven, Luc & Klingebiel, Daniela, 2007. "Banking crises, financial dependence, and growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 187-228, April.
    24. Elena Loutskina & Philip E. Strahan, 2009. "Securitization and the Declining Impact of Bank Finance on Loan Supply: Evidence from Mortgage Originations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 861-889, April.
    25. Yuliya Demyanyk & Otto Van Hemert, 2011. "Understanding the Subprime Mortgage Crisis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(6), pages 1848-1880.
    26. Randall S. Kroszner, 2007. "Analyzing and assessing banking crises," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Sep.
    27. Asea, Patrick K. & Blomberg, Brock, 1998. "Lending cycles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1-2), pages 89-128.
    28. Ben S. Bernanke, 2007. "Housing, housing finance, and monetary policy," Speech 311, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    29. repec:fip:fedgsq:y:2007:i:aug31 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Munnell, Alicia H. & Geoffrey M. B. Tootell & Lynn E. Browne & James McEneaney, 1996. "Mortgage Lending in Boston: Interpreting HMDA Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 25-53, March.
    31. Raghuram G. Rajan, 1994. "Why Bank Credit Policies Fluctuate: A Theory and Some Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 399-441.
    32. 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.
    33. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    34. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller, 2003. "Is There a Bubble in the Housing Market?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2), pages 299-362.
    35. Jimenez, Gabriel & Salas, Vicente & Saurina, Jesus, 2006. "Determinants of collateral," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 255-281, August.
    36. Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Robert Marquez, 2006. "Lending Booms and Lending Standards," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(5), pages 2511-2546, October.
    37. 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.
    38. Sandra E. Black & Philip E. Strahan, 2002. "Entrepreneurship and Bank Credit Availability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2807-2833, December.
    39. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2007. "Credit Traps and Credit Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 503-516, March.
    40. Mayer,Colin & Vives,Xavier (ed.), 1993. "Capital Markets and Financial Intermediation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521443975, October.
    41. Ongena, Steven & Peydró, José-Luis & Jiménez, Gabriel & Saurina, Jesús, 2007. "Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy: What Do Twenty-Three Million Bank Loans Say About the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit," CEPR Discussion Papers 6514, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    42. Ben S. Bernanke & Cara S. Lown, 1991. "The Credit Crunch," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(2), pages 205-248.
    43. Anil K. Kashyap & Raghuram G. Rajan & Jeremy C. Stein, 2008. "Rethinking capital regulation," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 431-471.
    44. Mitchell A. Petersen & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2002. "Does Distance Still Matter? The Information Revolution in Small Business Lending," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2533-2570, December.
    45. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 1999. "Why Is There More Crime in Cities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 225-258, December.
    46. 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.
    47. Jiminez, G. & Ongena, S. & Saurina, J., 2007. "Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy : What do Twenty-three Million Bank Loans Say about the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit Risk?," Discussion Paper 2007-75, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    48. Broecker, Thorsten, 1990. "Credit-Worthiness Tests and Interbank Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 429-452, March.
    49. Amy Cutts & Robert Order, 2004. "On the Economics of Subprime Lending," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 167-196, November.
    50. Michael H. Riordan, 1992. "Competition and Bank Performance: A Theoretical Perspective," Papers 0026, Boston University - Industry Studies Programme.
    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. Gabriel Jiménez & Steven Ongena & José-Luis Peydró & Jesús Saurina, 2017. "Macroprudential Policy, Countercyclical Bank Capital Buffers, and Credit Supply: Evidence from the Spanish Dynamic Provisioning Experiments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(6), pages 2126-2177.
    2. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    3. Luc Laeven, 2011. "Banking Crises: A Review," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 17-40, December.
    4. Kick, Thomas & Pausch, Thilo & Ruprecht, Benedikt, 2015. "The winner's curse: Evidence on the danger of aggressive credit growth in banking," Discussion Papers 32/2015, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    5. Gabriel Jiménez & Steven Ongena & José‐Luis Peydró & Jesús Saurina, 2014. "Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy: What Do Twenty‐Three Million Bank Loans Say About the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit Risk‐Taking?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(2), pages 463-505, March.
    6. Delis, Manthos D. & Kouretas, Georgios P. & Tsoumas, Chris, 2014. "Anxious periods and bank lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-13.
    7. Yuliya Demyanyk & Otto Van Hemert, 2011. "Understanding the Subprime Mortgage Crisis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(6), pages 1848-1880.
    8. Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Robert Marquez, 2006. "Lending Booms and Lending Standards," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(5), pages 2511-2546, October.
    9. Sengupta, Rajdeep, 2014. "Lending to uncreditworthy borrowers," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 101-128.
    10. Mikel Bedayo & Gabriel Jiménez & José-Luis Peydró & Raquel Vegas, 2020. "Screening and Loan Origination Time: Lending Standards, Loan Defaults and Bank Failures," Working Papers 1215, Barcelona School of Economics.
    11. Ravn, Søren Hove, 2016. "Endogenous credit standards and aggregate fluctuations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 89-111.
    12. Giovanni Dell'Ariccia, 2012. "Property Prices and Bank Risk-taking," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Alexandra Heath & Frank Packer & Callan Windsor (ed.),Property Markets and Financial Stability, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    13. Bassett, William F. & Chosak, Mary Beth & Driscoll, John C. & Zakrajšek, Egon, 2014. "Changes in bank lending standards and the macroeconomy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 23-40.
    14. Viral V. Acharya & Stephen G. Ryan, 2016. "Banks’ Financial Reporting and Financial System Stability," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 277-340, May.
    15. João Granja & Christian Leuz & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2022. "Going the Extra Mile: Distant Lending and Credit Cycles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(2), pages 1259-1324, April.
    16. Wheeler, Christopher H. & Olson, Luke M., 2015. "Racial differences in mortgage denials over the housing cycle: Evidence from U.S. metropolitan areas," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 33-49.
    17. Athanasoglou, Panayiotis P. & Daniilidis, Ioannis & Delis, Manthos D., 2014. "Bank procyclicality and output: Issues and policies," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 58-83.
    18. Sääskilahti, Jaakko, 2016. "Local bank competition and small business lending after the onset of the financial crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 37-51.
    19. Bank for International Settlements, 2022. "Private sector debt and financial stability," CGFS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 67, december.
    20. Deniz Igan & Prachi Mishra & Thierry Tressel, 2012. "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 195-230.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    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:wly:jmoncb:v:44:y:2012:i:2-3:p:367-384. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-2879 .

    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.