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Learning From the Last Great Mortgage Mess

We’ve had the good fortune over the last few years here at the blog to bring you occasional nuggets from University of Arizona economist Price Fishback, whose research on the Great Depression often offers powerful insights about our current economic situation.

Price’s latest contribution to the blog, this time joint with Ken Snowden from UNC-Greensboro, discusses the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation, which bought and refinanced 1 million severely delinquent loans between 1933 and 1936.  Did things works out well or poorly?  You’ll have to read on to find out.  And if you like what they’ve written, keep an eye out for their soon to be released book (with Jonathan Rose as a third author).

 

Learning from the Last Great Mortgage Mess
By Price Fishback and Ken Snowden

For the past four years, the U.S. has faced a housing crisis that shows no signs of ending.  The situation was similar in June 1933 when the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation was created to address the nation’s last severe mortgage crisis.  Some have suggested that a new HOLC could help resolve the current crisis, but their characterizations of the HOLC have been incomplete.  Our goal here is to summarize recent research that provides a fuller picture of the HOLC and its impact on housing markets in the 1930s.        


NBA Fans Give the League a Predictable Present on Christmas

Before labor peace came to the NBA, it was not uncommon to hear stories that the lockout was going to negatively impact fan interest in the game (here is one example in this genre). The story basically went as follows:

1. Fans become angry when the games are taken away.
2. The longer fans go without games, the angrier they become.
3. Stay away too long and the angry fans will never come back.

This story actually gets repeated every time a labor dispute that taken away games in North American sports. And the story certainly seems plausible.

A few years ago, though, Martin Schmidt and I investigated the impact disputes have upon fan attendance; and much to our surprise (yes, we tended to believe the stories sports writers had told us for years) we failed to find an effect. Attendance in the major North American sports is not statistically impacted by labor disputes.


Scaling the Heights of Corporate Greed: Chafkin and Lo on Risk

Andrew W. Lo, who teaches at M.I.T. and is director of its Laboratory for Financial Engineering, has contributed to this blog before. Here he is joined by co-author Jeremiah H. Chafkin, president of AlphaSimplex Group (where Lo also serves as chairman and chief scientific officer) for a guest post about the best (and worst) ways to manage risk.


The Duty to Rescue and the Registry for Caregivers: A Guest Post

In two previous posts, we examined laws exempting family members from prosecution for harboring fugitives and laws either granting or permitting sentencing discounts on account of one’s family status, ties, or responsibilities. These are two of the benefits defendants receive on account of their family status in the criminal justice system.


When the Fugitive Is a Family Member: A Guest Post

Following up on our earlier introductory post about our book on criminal justice and the family, we thought we’d start here with an examination of the same topic that initially sparked our interest in the intersection of criminal justice and the family — namely, how the law treats persons who refuse to cooperate (or actively interfere) with law enforcement on account of trying to protect a family member.


Krugman vs. Ferguson: Letting the Data Speak

When giants like Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson start to argue, they both sound compelling. Ferguson says that interest rates are rising because of the deficit, and Krugman retorts that Ferguson has forgotten his first-year economics. Fortunately, the data can speak, and it’s time to give them a voice. This is why I turn to my frequent collaborator, Eric Zitzewitz, who has an incredibly handy knack for getting financial data to speak clearly. Eric’s verdict? You’ll have to keep reading.


The President's Party and the Economy: A Guest Post

A couple of months ago, some Freakonomics readers wondered whether the president really had any discernible impact on the economy. This question has actually received a lot attention from political scientists and political economists. Although these scholars still dispute precisely how presidents influence the macroeconomy, few would deny that the impact is real. The following are three macroeconomic phenomena that have been attributed to a president’s party affiliation.


Another Perspective on the Human Development Index

A few days back I wrote a post claiming that “for all the work that goes into the Human Development Index, it just doesn’t tell you much that you wouldn’t learn from simple comparisons of G.D.P. per capita.” Subsequently Francisco Rodriguez, who heads research at the UN Human Development Report Office touched base to tell me that he thought I hadn’t told the whole story. Francisco is a terrific macroeconomist (in fact, he was the TA when I took my graduate macro classes at Harvard), and so he kindly agreed to write a guest post filling in the missing pieces.


Lightbulb Moment in Food History

Susanne Freidberg, a professor of geography at Dartmouth, has been guest blogging here about the food supply. This is her final post; we thank her very much. You can thank her too by picking up a copy of her just-released book, “Fresh: A Perishable History.” Photo: Stephen Ausmus A White Leghorn hen. Last week’s post talked about early-20th-century “egg gamblers” . . .


Quantifying the Nightmare Scenarios

Dartmouth’s Eric Zitzewitz is one of my favorite co-authors, and a whiz at tracking financial markets. And when he mentioned to me last week that a close look at the options markets told an interesting tale of fear, I asked him to share his observations. Here goes. Quantifying the Nightmare Scenarios By Eric Zitzewitz A Guest Post There’s no shortage . . .


When a Batter Is Hit by a Pitch, What's the Next Batter Thinking? A Guest Post

Now that A-Rod has delivered the annual Yankees Substance Abuse Lecture to kick off spring training, I think we’re all ready for some actual baseball. Micah Kelber is a writer and freelance rabbi who lives in Brooklyn, currently writing a screenplay about divorce in New York in the 1940’s. He has written a terrifically entertaining guest post on the oft-neglected . . .


Does a Big Economy Need Big Power Plants? A Guest Post

Amory B. Lovins is the energy maven’s energy maven, viewed variously as a visionary or a heretic in his assessments of how the U.S. and the world should be generating and using energy. More specifically, he is the chairman and chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a man who has won many awards, written many books, and, as if that weren’t enough, was a fan favorite for Energy Secretary when we asked blog readers a few months ago to give incoming President Obama some advice.


This Is Your Brain on Prosperity: Andrew Lo on Fear, Greed, and Crisis Management

Andrew Lo Andrew W. Lo is the Harris & Harris Group Professor at M.I.T. and director of its Laboratory for Financial Engineering. (Here are some of his papers.) To my mind, he’s one of the most fluent guides to the state of modern finance in that he combines the rigors of a quant with a behavioralist’s appreciation for human intricacy. . . .


Why You'll Love Paying for Roads That Used to Be Free, Part Two

In my prior post, I blogged about introducing variable tolls on America’s highways. The basic idea: fight congestion by imposing tolls that vary in response to traffic levels. When roads are too crowded, hike the tolls, keep some drivers out, and thus keep traffic free flowing at all times.


Cook, Ludwig, and McCrary: Setting the Agenda for Fighting Crime

With macroeconomic issues taking center stage, it is not clear that other issues, like crime, will get much attention in the Obama administration. Personally, however, I think it is an excellent time to reflect on our current approach to fighting crime. The United States has enjoyed a great deal of success over the last 15 to 20 years in reducing . . .


Why You'll Love Paying for Roads That Used to Be Free: A Guest Post

Eric A. Morris is a researcher at U.C.L.A.’s Institute of Transportation Studies, concentrating on a variety of transportation issues including history, economics, and management. He weighed in here earlier on the gas tax. Here is his first of two posts on road tolls. Why You’ll Love Paying for Roads That Used to Be Free By Eric A. Morris A Guest . . .


The Truth About Peking Duck and Other Beijing Reflections: A Guest Post

Earlier this week, Nathan Myhrvold gave us his thoughts (and photos) from a visit to Shanghai. Here, as promised, is the second installment of his China trip, which takes him to Beijing. You will probably never look at Peking duck — or the Bird’s Nest — quite the same way again. His earlier posts on Iceland and Greenland can be . . .


Is Shanghai Turning Pro or Just Building High? A Guest Post

Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, now runs the invention company Intellectual Ventures. He is a polymath’s polymath: a physicist by training who practices many feats of technology as well as dinosaur-hunting, intensive cuisine, photography, and other, more esoteric pursuits. Earlier this year he contributed three guest posts about his visits to Greenland and Iceland. Now he . . .


The Gas Tax Revisited: A Guest Post

It would seem to be a fantastic time to raise gas taxes right now: while the economic climate is so dire that all other tax hikes have been shelved (even the high-earner income-tax increase that Obama pushed during his campaign), gas prices have fallen so far in recent weeks that even an outrageously high per-gallon tax wouldn’t hurt much right now. (It’d be kind of like a SMarT Plan in reverse.) But as with all tax matters, things aren’t so simple.


Diamond and Kashyap on the Recent Financial Upheavals

As an economist, I am supposed to have something intelligent to say about the current financial crisis. To be honest, however, I haven’t got the foggiest idea what this all means. So I did what I always do when something related to banking arises: I knocked on the doors of my colleagues Doug Diamond and Anil Kashyap, and asked them . . .


The X-Files, Economics Edition: A Guest Post

Peter Leeson is the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at George Mason University. He is particularly interested in the economics of 18th-century pirates, as reflected in his forthcoming book “The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates.” His other interests include dominoes and U.F.O.’s. With such an odd and diverse portfolio, he is a natural fit with Freakonomics, . . .


The 100-Year Gap in Understanding

William Tucker, author of the forthcoming book Terrestrial Energy, blogged here earlier this week about nuclear power. This is his last of three guest posts here on the subject. When I was in college I took a course on the great political philosophers. Soon I had them all lined up with their respective eras: Hobbes and the 18th-century monarchies, Locke . . .


Did Jane Fonda Ruin Nuclear Power? A Guest Post

William Tucker, author of the forthcoming book Terrestrial Energy, blogged here earlier this week about nuclear power. This is his second of three guest posts here on the subject. A year ago, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt wrote a New York Times Magazine column entitled “The Jane Fonda Effect,” in which they argued that Fonda’s efforts in the movie The . . .


Who Are You Calling a Hypocrite? A Guest Post

David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, has done some interesting research on hypocrisy and morals, which has appeared recently in Newsweek and The Times. DeSteno has agreed to blog about his findings here. With the election season fast approaching, epithets of “hypocrite” are flying. You know the implications — hypocrites cannot be trusted, they’re morally compromised. Whether . . .


What’s the Significance of Your Sign? A Guest Post

A reader named E. Allyn Smith, a Ph.D. student in linguistics at Ohio State University, wrote in with the following observations. I’ve been thinking about birthdays a lot lately, because November 15th to the 27th is one of the annual “birthday rushes” in which I have eight birthdays in two weeks. It got me thinking that not only are there . . .


A Word From the Wordsmith

In 1994, Anu Garg, a computer science graduate student in Ohio, decided to pick a daily word, study its origins, and share his findings with his fellow students. The result was Wordsmith.org, which today has more than 650,000 readers in 200 countries. Over the past 13 years, Garg has shared thousands of words with fellow linguaphiles, including illeist (someone who . . .