The Macroeconomic Effects of Government Asset Purchases: Evidence from Postwar US Housing Credit Policy

Andrew Fieldhouse, Karel Mertens and Morten Ravn

No 23154, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

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, in particular refinancing, and lowers mortgage rates. Agency purchases influence prices in other asset markets, stimulate residential investment and expand homeownership. 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.

JEL-codes: E44 E5 G28 R38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-mac and nep-ure
Note: EFG ME
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published as Andrew J Fieldhouse & Karel Mertens & Morten O Ravn, 2018. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Government Asset Purchases: Evidence from Postwar U.S. Housing Credit Policy*," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol 133(3), pages 1503-1560.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w23154.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:23154

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w23154

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().