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The Banks Did It : An Anatomy of the Financial Crisis / Neil Fligstein.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©2021Description: 1 online resource (336 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674249356
  • 9780674259027
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 330.973/0931 23
LOC classification:
  • HB3725 .F55 2021
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- THE BANKS DID IT -- 1 A Long, Strange Trip -- 2 From Mortgages to Mortgage Securitization -- 3 The Rise of the Vertically Integrated Private Banks, 1993–2001 -- 4 Financial Innovation and the Alphabet Soup of Financial Products -- 5 The Subprime Moment, 2001–2008 -- 6 The Crisis and Its Spread Worldwide -- 7 Fraud and the Financial Crisis -- 8 Why Did the Federal Reserve Miss the Financial Crisis of 2008 -- 9 The Banks Did It (With the Help of the Government!) -- Notes -- References -- Acknowledgments -- Index
Summary: A comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the mortgage-securitization industry, which explains the complex roots of the 2008 financial crisis. More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis plunged the world economy into recession, we still lack an adequate explanation for why it happened. Existing accounts identify a number of culprits—financial instruments, traders, regulators, capital flows—yet fail to grasp how the various puzzle pieces came together. The key, Neil Fligstein argues, is the convergence of major US banks on an identical business model: extracting money from the securitization of mortgages. But how, and why, did this convergence come about? The Banks Did It carefully takes the reader through the development of a banking industry dependent on mortgage securitization. Fligstein documents how banks, with help from the government, created the market for mortgage securities. The largest banks—Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Citibank, and Washington Mutual—soon came to participate in every aspect of this market. Each firm originated mortgages, issued mortgage-backed securities, sold those securities, and, in many cases, acted as their own best customers by purchasing the same securities. Entirely reliant on the throughput of mortgages, these firms were unable to alter course even when it became clear that the market had turned on them in the mid-2000s. With the structural features of the banking industry in view, the rest of the story falls into place. Fligstein explains how the crisis was produced, where it spread, why regulators missed the warning signs, and how banks’ dependence on mortgage securitization resulted in predatory lending and securities fraud. An illuminating account of the transformation of the American financial system, The Banks Did It offers important lessons for anyone with a stake in avoiding the next crisis.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674259027

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- THE BANKS DID IT -- 1 A Long, Strange Trip -- 2 From Mortgages to Mortgage Securitization -- 3 The Rise of the Vertically Integrated Private Banks, 1993–2001 -- 4 Financial Innovation and the Alphabet Soup of Financial Products -- 5 The Subprime Moment, 2001–2008 -- 6 The Crisis and Its Spread Worldwide -- 7 Fraud and the Financial Crisis -- 8 Why Did the Federal Reserve Miss the Financial Crisis of 2008 -- 9 The Banks Did It (With the Help of the Government!) -- Notes -- References -- Acknowledgments -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

A comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the mortgage-securitization industry, which explains the complex roots of the 2008 financial crisis. More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis plunged the world economy into recession, we still lack an adequate explanation for why it happened. Existing accounts identify a number of culprits—financial instruments, traders, regulators, capital flows—yet fail to grasp how the various puzzle pieces came together. The key, Neil Fligstein argues, is the convergence of major US banks on an identical business model: extracting money from the securitization of mortgages. But how, and why, did this convergence come about? The Banks Did It carefully takes the reader through the development of a banking industry dependent on mortgage securitization. Fligstein documents how banks, with help from the government, created the market for mortgage securities. The largest banks—Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Citibank, and Washington Mutual—soon came to participate in every aspect of this market. Each firm originated mortgages, issued mortgage-backed securities, sold those securities, and, in many cases, acted as their own best customers by purchasing the same securities. Entirely reliant on the throughput of mortgages, these firms were unable to alter course even when it became clear that the market had turned on them in the mid-2000s. With the structural features of the banking industry in view, the rest of the story falls into place. Fligstein explains how the crisis was produced, where it spread, why regulators missed the warning signs, and how banks’ dependence on mortgage securitization resulted in predatory lending and securities fraud. An illuminating account of the transformation of the American financial system, The Banks Did It offers important lessons for anyone with a stake in avoiding the next crisis.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Dez 2022)

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