The subprime crisis and its role in the financial crisis

This paper discusses some of the key characteristics of the U.S. subprime mortgage boom and bust and discusses the causes, particularly related to the relationship between subprime mortgage defaults and housing prices. We observe that housing prices and mortgage defaults had distinctly localized trends, but those trends ceased by 2005 when several states studied in this paper (Arizona, California and Nevada) began to move together. Furthermore, we observe the seriously delinquent subprime mortgages increased much more rapidly than was anticipated by historically-based econometric models. As such, this paper offers a partial explanation for how financial institutions misunderstood the declining house prices and increasing subprime default.