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Mortgage Meltdown, the Economy and Public Policy
A UC Berkeley symposium held October 30-31, 2008 explored the “Mortgage Meltdown, the Economy and Public Policy.” The event was co-sponsored by the Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy, the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging, and UCLA’s Ziman Center for Real Estate. Topics included the demography of foreclosures, the future of the housing finance system, the crisis in financial markets, and potential policies to deal with the mortgage market implosion. Keynote speakers included Federal Reserve Bank Chair Ben Bernanke (“On the Future of Mortgage Finance in the United States”) and San Francisco Federal Reserve President Janet Yellen (“The Policy Maker's Perspective on the Financial Meltdown and the Economy”). One panel devoted itself to the “Demography and Geography of Foreclosures” and featured papers on “Subprime Mortgages, Foreclosures, and Urban Neighborhoods” (Paul Willen, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) and “House Prices, Interest Rates, and the Mortgage Market Meltdown" (Chris Mayer, Columbia University). The symposium’s papers, keynote addresses, and discussant remarks were assembled and published as a special volume of the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy in March 2009.

Click here for a pdf version of the Conference Agenda.

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