Wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar het ontstaan van de subprime crisis in de VSAbstract:
We examine how constituent interests and special interests influence U.S. government poli-
cies toward the housing sector during the mortgage credit expansion from 2001 to 2006 and
subsequent default crisis of 2007 and 2008. Using a unique disaggregated data set on mortgage
defaults and consumer credit scores, we estimate the direct e¤ect of constituent interests on
congressional voting patterns: We show that the fraction of mortgage defaults in congressional
districts strongly predicts congressional voting behavior on the American Housing Rescue and
Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, even after controlling for a politician’s ideology. We also
show that during the expansion in subprime mortgage credit from 2001 to 2006, representatives
from districts with a high share of subprime borrowers experience a sharp relative increase in
campaign contributions from the mortgage industry. This latter …nding suggests that special
interests recognized a role for Congress in the subprime mortgage expansion and directed their
e¤ort to representatives of districts where constituents were more likely to obtain newly available
subprime mortgages.
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