Remaking Mortgage Markets by Remaking Mortgages: US Housing Finance after the Crisis

This article examines the post- financial crisis reregulation of US housing finance, focusing on reforms to rein in excessive risk taking and reconstitute the private circulation of mortgage debt. We begin by situating current initiatives-namely, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010-in a much longer trajectory of attempts to construct a national market for home mortgages. Following the theorization of the economy of qualities by Callon, Meadel, and Rabeharisoa, we argue that a dominant theme throughout has been creating or fixing mortgage markets by performing work on the commodities-the mortgage products-that circulate in them. In light of this history, we argue that Dodd-Frank's primary novelty lies in the way it alters relations between those products and market-supporting institutions, laws, and regulations. We conclude that this shapes a new set of contradictions and conflicts between market liquidity and risk taking, on the one hand, and the original concerns with financial safety and soundness, on the other.