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Title: Great background but dated
Review: Kendalll and Fishman's book provided a wonderful historical perspective on the rise of mortgage-backed securities, including the roles played by several of the GSEs (government-sponsored entities) and the Resolution Trust Corporation, which was responsible for cleaning up the balance sheets of failed S&Ls; in the early 1980s. I would have liked to see more math, but other than that, the various lectures describe the demand for securitization, how it benefits the housing market, as well as how mortgage-backed securities were received by institutional investors.As has been noted in other reviews, you have to ignore the publication date of July 31, 2000 because most of the lectures were collected from the mid-1990s! Also, it's difficult to understand the perspective of each article, because there is no detailed biography of the contributor.Despite these caveats, the articles are very well written, and the historical perspective is quite valuable.
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