Economic Growth

What role did credit ratings play in the 2008 crisis? 

This article is published in collaboration with NBER Digest.
Gold bars and a Swiss Franc coin are seen in this illustration picture taken at the Austrian Gold and Silver Separating Plant 'Oegussa' in Vienna November 7, 2014. A vote in favour of Switzerland boosting its gold reserves would be disastrous for the country, the chairman of the Swiss central bank said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday. The "Save our Swiss gold" proposal, spearheaded by the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), aims to ban the central bank from offloading its reserves and oblige it to hold at least 20 percent of its assets in gold. The referendum is scheduled for November 30. The SVP argues it would secure a stable Swiss franc. Picture taken November 7, 2014.      REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger (AUSTRIA)

Some new evidence.. Image: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger (AUSTRIA)

Linda Gorman
Director of the Health Care Policy Center, Independence Institute

New evidence on the performance of non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) during the 2007–13 period casts doubt on the ubiquitous claim that the 2008 financial crisis was triggered by over-extension of mortgage credit and a failure of rating agencies to recognize the associated risks to investors.

Non-agency RMBS are backed by mortgages that do not qualify for guarantees issued by agencies of the U.S. government. Examples of such loans are "jumbo" mortgages that exceed the value limit for guarantees, those with a high loan-to-value ratio, and those lacking the documentation needed for agency backing. From 1987 through 2013, various lenders issued about $5.8 trillion in non-agency RMBS. A common narrative for the start of the financial crisis suggests that credit agencies downplayed the riskiness of RMBS, drawing in lenders who did not appreciate their intrinsic risk. Some also claim that ratings were less accurate in the subprime market than elsewhere.

Image: MMSA / Bloomberg / Markit

In Mortgage-Backed Securities and the Financial Crisis of 2008: A Post Mortem(NBER Working Paper No. 24509) Juan Ospina and Harald Uhlig examine new data on the prices of non-agency RMBS. They find that total losses in the non-agency RMBS market through December 2013 were less than $350 billion, about 6.5 percent of their pre-crisis market value. Subprime AAA-rated securities performed well compared to securities in other market segments. Some categories of non-agency RMBS generated rates of return between 2.4 and 3.3 percent at a time when 10-year Treasuries yielded between 3 and 4 percent. These findings challenge the view that improperly rated RMBS were a major contributor to the financial crisis.

The researchers study 8,615 deals to securitize non-agency RMBS from 1987 through 2008. The securities created by those deals are tracked through 2013. Almost 87 percent of the securities issued were AAA-rated. These had almost no losses before 2003. In contrast, the cumulative losses for securities issued between 2006 and 2008 were around 2.3 percent for the entire portfolio of AAA-rated non-agency RMBS, compared to their originally promised payouts.

Have you read?

While one might consider these losses substantial relative to historical losses for that rating class, the subprime AAA-rated segment outperformed the AAA-rated market as a whole. The subprime AAA segment experienced a principal-weighted loss rate of 0.42 percent on average, and there was no increase in loss rates for subprime-based AAA securities issued in 2006-8. Losses were higher in other rating segments. For example, in the $53 billion non-investment grade, non-agency RMBS market, which comprised about 1 percent of the total non-agency market, the loss rate exceeded 50 percent.

The researchers find that 75 percent of the AAA-rated securities had practically no losses until the end of 2013 and thus, in hindsight, deserved their rating so far. They find more evidence of inflated ratings for weaker securities. For securities with a rating of A or below, they conclude that there was a high fraction of inflated ratings. They point out, however, that these securities represented only a small part of the RMBS market.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Stay up to date:

Financial and Monetary Systems

Related topics:
Economic GrowthGeo-Economics and PoliticsFinancial and Monetary SystemsTrade and Investment
Share:
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Financial and Monetary Systems is affecting economies, industries and global issues
A hand holding a looking glass by a lake
Crowdsource Innovation
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
World Economic Forum logo
Global Agenda

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

The top economics stories of 2024

World Economic Forum

December 11, 2024

A lesson from democracy’s record year: ‘vibes’ mean more to voters than GDP

About us

Engage with us

  • Sign in
  • Partner with us
  • Become a member
  • Sign up for our press releases
  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Contact us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2024 World Economic Forum