Previous versions of this working paper were originally published in January 2020 and December 2020.
We ask whether this benefit contributed to the growth in acquisitions of risky mortgages by the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) in the first half of 2007. We find that it helps explain the variation of this growth across regions. The growth predicted by this benefit is on top of the acquisition growth caused by the exit of private-label securitizers. We conclude that the GSEs actively targeted their acquisitions to counter home-price declines.
