Savings and loans
The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis) was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls) in the United States. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD$160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. government — that is, the U.S. taxpayer, either directly or through charges on their savings and loan accounts– [1], which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s. The resulting taxpayer bailout ended up being even larger than it would have been because moral hazard and adverse-selection incentives compounded the system’s losses. [2]
The concomitant slowdown in the finance industry and the real estate market may have been a contributing cause of the 1990-1991 economic recession. Between 1986 and 1991, the number of new homes constructed per year dropped from 1.8 million to 1 million, the lowest rate since World War II. [3]
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[edit] Background
Savings and loan institutions (also known as S&Ls or thrifts) have existed since the 1800s. They originally served as community-based institutions for savings and mortgages. In the United States, S&Ls were tightly regulated until the late 1970s.[citation needed] For example, there was a ceiling on the interest rates they could offer to depositors.[citation needed]
In the 1970s, many banks, but particularly S&Ls, were experiencing a significant outflow of low-rate deposits, as interest rates were driven up by the high inflation rate of the late 1970s and as depositors moved their money to the new high-interest money-market funds.[citation needed] At the same time, the institutions had much of their money tied up in long-term mortgage loans that were written at fixed interest rates, and with market rates rising, were worth far less than face value. That is, in order to sell a 5% mortgage to pay requests from depositors for their funds in a market asking 10%, a savings and loan would have to discount its asking price on the mortgage. This meant that the value of these loans, which were the institution’s assets, was less than the deposits used to make them, and the savings and loan’s net worth was being eroded.
Under financial institution regulation, which had its roots in the Depression era, federally chartered S&Ls were only allowed to make a narrowly limited range of loan types. Late in the administration of President Jimmy Carter, caps were lifted on rates and the amounts insured per account to $100,000. In addition to raising the amounts covered by insurance, the amount of the accounts that would be repaid was increased from 70% to 100%. Increasing FSLIC coverage also permitted managers to take more risk to try to work their way out of insolvency so the government would not have to take over an institution.
Carter left office in January 1981, a year in which 3,300 out of 3,800 S&Ls lost money. In 1982, the combined tangible net capital of this industry was $4 billion. The chartering of federally regulated S&Ls accelerated rapidly with the Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, which was designed to make S&Ls more competitive and more solvent. S&Ls could now pay higher market rates for deposits, borrow money from the Federal Reserve, make commercial loans, and issue credit cards. They were also allowed to take an ownership position in the real estate and other projects to which they made loans and they began to rely on brokered funds to a considerable extent. This was a departure from their original mission of providing savings and mortgages.
[edit] Causes
[edit] Deregulation
Although the deregulation of S&Ls gave them many of the capabilities of banks, it did not bring them under the same regulations as banks. First, thrifts could choose to be under either a state or a federal charter. Immediately after deregulation of the federally chartered thrifts, the state-chartered thrifts rushed to become federally chartered, because of the advantages associated with a federal charter. In response, states (notably, California and Texas) changed their regulations so they would be similar to the federal regulations. States changed their regulations because state regulators were paid by the thrifts they regulated, and they didn’t want to lose that money.[citation needed]
