Special Studies for Key Events

A special report on measuring fiscal space and how to tell when a government is too deep in the hole to avoid a debt default.

Author: Mark Zandi
Date: December 13, 2011

President Obama’s much-anticipated jobs plan is a laudable effort to support the struggling economy. The plan would go a long way toward stabilizing confidence, forestalling another recession, and jump-starting a self-sustaining economic expansion. If fully implemented, the Obama jobs plan would increase real GDP growth in 2012 by 2 percentage points, add 1.9 million jobs, and reduce the unemployment rate by a full percentage point, compared with current fiscal policy.

Author: Mark Zandi
Date: September 9, 2011

U.S. regulators are working hard to implement the changes to the financial system set in motion by Congress’ most recent reforms. In general, these reforms should make the system more stable, with fewer and less severe financial crises in the future. Yet some elements of the reform were poorly crafted and have the potential to significantly impair the financial system if their flaws are not corrected. Among the most salient examples are the rules for lenders to retain part of the risk when they repackage loans into securities.

Author: Mark Zandi and Cristian DeRitis
Date: June 20, 2011

"What to do with Fannie and Freddie going forward? Some call for dismantling them completely and leaving housing finance to the private market. Yet considering how private firms handled other parts of the mortgage market, and acknowledging the many positive externalities that housing has for the economy, this is a doubtful prescription. It would be more prudent to return the institutions to their roots, running them like regulated utilities."

Author: Cristian deRitis
Date: October 24, 2008

The Federal Reserve should gear up the regulatory machinery …[H]istory strongly suggests that it is in the best of times, when nothing could seemingly go wrong, that mistakes, big mistakes, are made. For the housing and mortgage markets these are the best of times.

Author: Mark Zandi
Date: August 22, 2007