The Housing Crisis: Causes and Cures

As policymakers seek to respond to a slowing economy and turmoil in the housing and financial sectors, it is worth considering whether Congress’s proposed cures would be worse than the disease. The recent housing bubble and subsequent subprime mortgage crisis fundamentally stem from the same root cause: artificial housing shortages created by government land‐​use regulations. Could current proposals improve the stability and efficiency of the markets, or would they be more likely to prolong the pain and sow the seeds of the next dislocation? And what is the role of financial innovation in the current problems? Please join scholars Randal O’Toole and Ronald Utt to discuss how the housing and financial crises were created and how they can be avoided in the future.