Economic policies and nancial stability 279
leading the market for high- risk lending as the subprime boom took o; however,
they did exert a destabilizing inuence on the mortgage market by actively acquir-
ing risky mortgages as the subprime boom headed to its peak in 2007.
Overall, the increase in house prices in the US from 2002 to 2006 is partly ex-
plained by the fact that, under the inuence of a policy aimed at promoting home-
ownership and the resulting low mortgage rates, mortgage credit became more
accessible to subprime borrowers. Securitization of loans introduced additional dis-
tortions (Chapter 2), notably by weakening the link between the mortgage loan
and the lender, leading to lax credit standards (Fischer, 2017). In addit