Alex J. Pollock

The law that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stipulates that the agency must be funded by the central bank's earnings. But, the Fed has been losing money for two years. Therefore, its payments to the agency are not legal.

FHFA Director Mark Calabria should ensure the government-sponsored enterprises hold at least 4% of total assets as part of housing finance reform.

The role of the central bank has changed over the decades, but presidential pressure on the Fed has been a constant.

As policymakers consider administrative reforms to Fannie and Freddie, they must address the problem of capital arbitrage to avoid overleveraging the mortgage system.

The central bank’s investments under its quantitative easing program have put its balance sheet in the red under mark-to-market accounting, another potential risk for an agency already under political fire.

A new analysis of mortgage data demonstrates how default rates, not just approval and decline rates, can be used to evaluate findings of unfair treatment in lending.

Debates on the issue often focus on how lending decisions affect certain demographic groups, but those analyses tend to ignore an important factor: default rates.

The reserve bank's proposal to address banks and nonbanks that remain "too big to fail" does not include two of the largest such institutions: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Lenders should be encouraged to hold more credit risk in the mortgage market, rather than having it foisted on Fannie and Freddie.

The GSEs are on their way to paying back the money they owed the government under the original bailout deal made at the height of the financial crisis, making 2018 an opportune time for an overhaul of the housing finance market.