Ten Years of Evidence: Was Fraud a Force in the Financial Crisis?

This article synthesizes the large literature regarding the role of various players in residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) securitization at the center of the 2008–09 US housing and financial crisis. Underwriting banks facilitated wide-scale mortgage fraud by knowingly misreporting key loan characteristics underlying mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Under the cover of complexity, credit rating agencies catered to investment banks by issuing increasingly inflated ratings on both RMBS and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Originators who engaged in mortgage fraud gained market share, as did CDO managers who catered to underwriters by accepting the lowest-quality MBS collateral. Appraisal targeting and inflated appraisals were the norm. RMBS and CDO prices indicate that the marginal AAA investor was unaware of pervasive mortgage fraud and ratings inflation, but these factors were strongly related to future deal performance. The supply of fraudulent credit was not uniform, but clustered in certain geographic regions and zip codes. As these dubious originators extended credit to those who could not afford the loans, the credit expansion led to house price booms and subsequent crashes in these zip codes. Overall, a consistent narrative based on substantial research indicates that conflicts of interest, misreporting, and fraud were focal features of the financial crisis. (JEL G01, G21, G28, K42, R30)

How financial products organize spatial networks: Analyzing collateralized debt obligations and collateralized loan obligations as “networked products”

During the 2010s, collateralized loan obligations rapidly became a trillion-dollar industry, mirroring the growth profile and peak value of its cousin—collateralized debt obligations—in the 2000s. Yet, despite similarities in product form and growth trajectory, surprisingly little is known about how these markets evolved spatially and relationally. This paper fills that knowledge gap by asking two questions: how did each network adapt to achieve scale at speed across different jurisdictions; and to what extent does the spatial and relational organization of today's collateralized loan obligation structuration network, mirror that of collateralized debt obligations pre-crisis? To answer those questions, we draw on the global financial networks approach, developing our own concept of the networked product to explore the agentic qualities of collateralized debt obligations and collateralized loan obligations—specifically how their technical and regulatory “needs” shape the roles and jurisdictions enrolled in a global financial network. We use social network analysis to map and analyze the evolving spatial and relational organization that nurtured this growth, drawing on data harvested from offering circulars. We find that collateralized debt obligations spread from the US to Europe through a process of transduplication—that similar role-based network relations were reproduced from one regulatory regime to another. We also find a strong correlation between pre-crisis collateralized debt obligation- and post-crisis collateralized loan obligation-global financial networks in both US$- and €-denominations, with often the same network participants involved in each. We conclude by reflecting on the prosaic way financial markets for ostensibly complex products reproduce and the capacity for network stabilities to produce market instabilities.

Mathematical Estimation Methods and Models for Industrial Companies

The collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps applications are shown in this paper. The industry obligations secondary market risk estimation methods are considered in this work. The new methods taking into account statistically significant parameters for industrial credit derivatives portfolio are offered for single-name investment risks numerical experiments realization. The mathematical estimation of tranche were shown. The single and multiple name default obligations necessary mathematical modeling methods and formulae for the industrial materials manufacturers derivative credit tools market are shown. It is determined that the portfolio of synthetic debt tools is made of the given parameters. The task of a loss derivative tranches mathematical estimation is solved. Late defaults raise the equity tranches payment required sums with high spreads, early defaults reduce. Also the functional characteristics required for an estimation huge debts problem solving are partly considered in this paper. The problem of the default modeling for market tools and numerical simulation of the obligations influence on conditions of current bistability mode are shown here. Some credit derivatives of industrial manufacturers are demonstrated in the modeling process of default as an example. It is found that the model is an additional factor help us to estimate the default opportunity.

Self-Fulfilling Fire Sales: Fragility of Collateralized Short-Term Debt Markets

This paper shows that collateralized short-term debt, although privately optimal for reducing borrowers’ risk-taking incentives, can induce fragility (multiple equilibria). Despite sequential-service property being absent in collateralized debt, such as repurchase agreements, a systemic run can arise, featuring large increases in default risks, fire-sale discounts of collateral, cost of credit, and amount of credit rationing. Asset price guarantees, leverage caps, and central clearing promote stability and welfare. Using global games techniques, I show that a systemic run is more likely in bad times, and a large enough asset price guarantee reduces run risks.

Ethical Challenges of Complex Products: Case of Goldman Sachs and the Synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligations

In analyzing complex products, this study selected the company Goldman Sachs and one of its product offerings, the synthetic collateralized debt obligation (synthetic CDO). The study later analyzed the ethical implications of providing such a complex product to customers. A review of the literature indicates that researchers identified this product and other associated derivatives of the mortgage backed securities as the main causes of the 2008 financial crisis in the United States of America. As such, Goldman Sachs’ offering of the product posed ethical and moral issues. An analysis of the company and its offering was done under the lenses of various ethical theories such as Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning, the Kantian ethics, the utilitarian perspective, Friedman’s shareholder theory, the stakeholder theory, the market approach to consumer protection, and the contract view of consumer protection. Besides Friedman’s shareholder theory, all other theories judged the product offering morally wrong and unethical. At the end of the study, the author suggested a contribution to knowledge regarding Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning in its application to organizations. The author also suggested further research to validate the outcome of Friedman’s shareholder theory regarding this case.

Financial Engineering and Portfolio Design Problem

Any financial institution is in charge of assigning to a client's portfolio a set of assets in a reliable way by minimizing the risk of loss and maximizing gain. All portfolios should share in an equitable way risky assets and safe assets with respect to a financial structured product such as CDO2 (collateralized debt obligation squared). Realizing a balanced portfolio requires a good level of diversification on the chosen assets. Many works have made proposals for modeling and solving the (OPD) problem, but each one has taken into account specific types of risks and cases. However, in this chapter, the authors introduce the problem in a general way by using the CDO2 structure. The authors focus in this chapter on the basic and useful notions of financial engineering, followed by a description of the financial portfolio structure CDO2, the most used and structured financial product. The chapter introduces the financial portfolio optimization problem through the CDO2 structure, the effect of the diversification on the efficiency of the financial portfolio.

Collateralized Debt Obligations, Collateralized Bond Obligations, and Collateralized Loan Obligations

Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are structured products that are issued by a special purpose vehicle with the objective of improving the issuer’s balance sheet, increasing access to illiquid securities, and/or generating a higher yield than would be offered in a traditional fixed income security. This chapter provides an overview of CDOs including a discussion on the history, structure, uses, and impact on investors and the broader financial system. CDOs can be further classified by the type of security held as collateral, such as collateralized bond obligations (CBOs), which typically hold high yield debt, and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), which hold bank loans. These financial structured products gain notoriety for their role in the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and have since declined in popularity. Despite the negative perception that CDOs carry, securitization continues to play an important function in the financial system and offers benefits to issuers and consumers as long as both parties use the end product responsibly.