The Rise and Fall of Demand for Securitizations

NBER Working Paper No. 20777

Issued in December 2014

NBER Program(s):Asset Pricing, Corporate Finance



Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and private-label mortgage-backed securities (MBS) backed by nonprime loans played a central role in the recent financial crisis. Little is known, however, about the underlying forces that drove investor demand for these securitizations. Using micro-data on insurers’ and mutual funds’ bond holdings, we find considerable heterogeneity in investor demand for securitizations in the pre-crisis period. We argue that both investor beliefs and incentives help to explain this variation in demand. By contrast, our data paints a more uniform picture of investor behavior in the crisis. Consistent with theories of optimal liquidation, investors largely traded in more liquid securities such as government-guaranteed MBS to meet their liquidity needs during the crisis.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w20777

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