Lecture 11 - Guest Lecture by Will Goetzmann: Institutions and Incentives in Mortgages and Mortgage-Backed Securities

Guest speaker Will Goetzmann, Director of the Yale International Center for Finance and professor at the Yale School of Management, provides a brief history of debt and financial crises. Professor Goetzmann begins with a discussion on debt slavery in the ancient world, and moves on to real estate financing in New York City. Professor Goetzmann also presents recent research by himself and others on the collapse of the real estate market. He explores the notion that the collapse of the mortgage market followed from the fallout of the larger financial crisis, rather than the other way around. Data on the real estate market is presented and discussed. Larger claims about responsibility of different players for the economic crisis are briefly assessed.