In less than twenty-five years, government “affordable housing” and other housing policies have turned a healthy market into a financial ruin. Until Fannie and Freddie’s market dominance and the government’s role in the housing finance system are substantially reduced or eliminated, the United States will continue to have an inferior and unstable housing market.

Do public insurance programs improve social welfare? Or does government intervention risk moral hazard and result in inefficient programs that would be better handled by the private sector?

In a new AEI volume, a group of leading economists critically examines whether the government should increase its role in five private insurance markets.

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Economic events in recent months have underscored the large role that the federal government plays as both an explicit and implicit insurer of a wide range of economic activities. For everything from terrorism, crops, floods, and natural catastrophes, to...

One of the most successful efforts to increase disclosure has been a proposal to require Fannie and Freddie to register their securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the best option as a matter of policy, but Congress is likely to take the path of least resistance and restore them as government-sponsored enterprises once the housing market is stable.

Following testimony by Alan Greenspan, key members of Congress have begun to focus on the retained mortgage and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolios of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a major source of the risk they pose to taxpayers and the economy in general. Chairman Richard Shelby of the Senate...

The only sure way to eliminate the risk of false accounting is to reduce the kinds of risky activities in which government-backed management can engage.