The ups and downs in housing markets over the past two decades are without precedent, and the costs-financial, psychological, and social-have been enormous. Yet Americans overwhelmingly still aspire to homeownership, and many still view access to homeownership as an important ingredient for building wealth among historically disadvantaged groups.This timely volume reexamines the goals, risks, and rewards of homeownership in the wake of the housing bubble and subprime lending crisis....

The recent collapse of the mortgage market revealed fractures in the credit market that have deep roots in the system's structure, conduct, and regulation. The time has come for a clear-eyed assessment of what happened and how the system should be strengthened and restructured. Such reform will have a profound and lasting impact on the capacity of Americans to use credit to build assets and finance consumption.Moving Forward explores what caused the crisis and, more importa...

The financial crisis that began in 2007 in the United States swept the world, producing substantial bank failures and forcing unprecedented state aid for the crippled global financial system. Bringing together three leading financial economists to provide an international perspective, Balancing the Banks draws critical lessons from the causes of the crisis and proposes important regulatory reforms, including sound guidelines for the ways in which distressed banks might be dealt wi...

Expert contributors examine the recent actions of the Federal Reserve and suggest directions for the Fed going forward by drawing on past political, historical, and market principles. They explain how the Fed arrived at its current position, offer ideas on how to exit the situation, and propose new market-based reforms that can help keep the Fed on the road to good monetary policy in the future.

This book examines the behavior of individuals at risk and insurance industry decision makers involved in selling, buying and regulation. It compares their actions to those predicted by benchmark models of choice derived from classical economic theory. Where actual choices stray from predictions, the behavior is considered to be anomalous. Howard C. Kunreuther, Mark Pauly and Stacey McMorrow attempt to understand why these anomalies occur, in many cases using insights from behavioral econo...

In this highly original piece of work, Steven D. Gjerstad and Nobel Laureate Vernon L. Smith analyze the role of housing and its associated mortgage financing as a key element of economic cycles. The authors combine data from both laboratory and real markets to provide insight into the bubble propensity of real-world economic actors and use novel historical analysis on the Great Recession, the Great Depression, and all of the post-World War II recessions to establish the critical roles of ...

Praise for Free Cash Flow and Shareholder Yield"Free Cash Flow and Shareholder Yield provides a provocative solution to the profound paradigm shift now redefining valuation standards for markets around the globe. In commonsense terms, it defines how the investment community has begun the journey of shifting to the more dependable, robust metric of free cash flow."—Rob Brown, Chief Investment Officer, Genworth Financial Asset Management, Inc...

A nonpartisan plan of action for fixing the global economy from fifteen of the world's leading economistsIn the fall of 2008, fifteen of the world's leading economists—representing the broadest spectrum of economic opinion—gathered at New Hampshire's Squam Lake. Their goal: the mapping of a long-term plan for financial regulation reform.The Squam Lake Report distills the wealth of insights from the ongoing collaboration that began at these meetings a...

The deflation of the subprime mortgage bubble in 2006-7 is widely agreed to have been the immediate cause of the collapse of the financial sector in 2008. Consequently, one might think that uncovering the origins of subprime lending would make the root causes of the crisis obvious. That is essentially where public debate about the causes of the crisis began—and ended—in the month following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the 502-point fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in mid-S...

A comprehensive look at the private equity arenaWith private equity differing from other asset classes, it requires a whole new approach for those trained in more traditional investments such as stocks and bonds. But with the right guidance, you can gain a firm understanding of everything private equity has to offer.This reliable resource provides a comprehensive view of private equity by describing the current state of research and best practices in this arena. Issues addr...

Hedge funds are collective investment vehicles, often organized as private partnerships and resident offshore for tax and regulatory purposes. Their legal status places few restrictions on their portfolios and transactions, leaving their managers free to use short sales, derivative securities, and leverage to raise returns and cushion risk. This paper considers the role of hedge funds in financial market dynamics, with particular reference to the Asian crisis.

The Oxford Handbook of Banking provides an overview and analysis of state-of-the-art research in banking written by leading researchers in the field. This handbook will appeal to graduate students of economics, banking and finance, academics, practitioners and policy makers. Consequently, the book strikes a balance between abstract theory, empirical analysis, and practitioner and policy-related material. The handbook is split into five parts. Part I, The Theory of Banking, examine...