The Deeper Causes of the Financial Crisis – Mortgages Alone Cannot Explain It

ABSTRACT

The losses on U.S. residential mortgage loans are too small to explain the magnitude of the 2008 financial crisis. The total losses, including the losses realized to date and those yet to be realized, should fall in the range of $750 billion to $2 trillion. The full, global magnitude of the crisis is significantly larger – probably in the range of $5 trillion to $15 trillion – depending on the approach for measuring it. This implies that losses on residential mortgage loans cannot have been the main cause of the crisis: they can only have been a trigger that served to unleash the true causes. The failure or near failure of a significant number of major financial firms suggests that high leverage and strong risk appetites were important immediate causes of the crisis. However, explaining the sources of high leverage and strong risk appetites requires probing for deeper causes that developed over a longer period. This article proposes the following deeper causes: securities firms converting from partnerships to corporations, the 30-year trend of deregulation, the quant movement, the spread of risk-taking culture through the financial industry, and globalization.

Complete paper below…

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The Deeper Causes of the Financial Crisis – Mortgages Alone Cannot Explain It