The Macroeconomic Effects of Government Asset Purchases: Evidence from Postwar US Housing Credit Policy
Morten Ravn,
Karel Mertens and
Andrew Fieldhouse
No 11830, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Abstract:
We document the portfolio activity of federal housing agencies and provide evidence on its impact on mortgage markets and the economy. Through a narrative analysis, we identify historical policy changes leading to expansions or contractions in agency mortgage holdings. Based on those regulatory events that we classify as unrelated to short-run cyclical or credit market shocks, we find that an increase in mortgage purchases by the agencies boosts mortgage lending and lowers mortgage rates. Agency purchases influence prices in other asset markets and stimulate residential investment. Using information in GSE stock prices to construct an alternative instrument for agency purchasing activity yields very similar results as our benchmark narrative identification approach.
Keywords: Credit policy; Monetary policy; Mortgage credit; Residential investment; Gses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E44 E52 G28 N22 R38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)
Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11830 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
Related works:
Journal Article: The Macroeconomic Effects of Government Asset Purchases: Evidence from Postwar U.S. Housing Credit Policy (2018)
Working Paper: The Macroeconomic Effects of Government Asset Purchases: Evidence from Postwar US Housing Credit Policy (2017)
Working Paper: The macroeconomic effects of Government asset purchases: evidence from postwar US housing credit policy (2017)
Working Paper: The Macroeconomic Effects of Government Asset Purchases: Evidence from Postwar US Housing Credit Policy (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11830
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11830
orders@cepr.org
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (repec@cepr.org).