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Top News November 8, 2007, 10:21AM EST

Testimony of Chairman Ben S. Bernanke

Before the Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress

Nov. 8, 2007

The Economic Outlook

Chairman Schumer, Vice Chairman Maloney, Representative Saxton, and other members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here this morning to present an update on the economic situation and outlook.

Developments in Financial Markets

Since I last appeared before this Committee in March, the U.S. economy has performed reasonably well. On preliminary estimates, real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average pace of nearly 4 percent over the second and third quarters despite the ongoing correction in the housing market. Core inflation has improved modestly, although recent increases in energy prices will likely lead overall inflation to rise for a time.

However, the economic outlook has been importantly affected by recent developments in financial markets, which have come under significant pressure in the past few months. The financial turmoil was triggered by investor concerns about the credit quality of mortgages, especially subprime mortgages with adjustable interest rates. The continuing increase in the rate of serious delinquencies for such mortgages reflects in part a decline in underwriting standards in recent years as well as softening house prices. Delinquencies on these mortgages are likely to rise further in coming quarters as a sizable number of recent-vintage subprime loans experience their first interest rate resets. I will have more to say about this problem and its implications for homeowners later in my testimony.

At one time, most mortgages were originated and held by depository institutions. Today, however, mortgages are commonly bundled together into mortgage-backed securities or structured credit products, rated by credit-rating agencies, and then sold to investors. As mortgage losses have mounted, investors have questioned the reliability of credit ratings, especially those of structured products. Because many investors had not developed the capacity to perform independent evaluations of these often-complex instruments, the loss of confidence in the credit ratings, together with uncertainty about developments in the housing market, led to a sharp decline in demand for these products. Since July, few securities backed by subprime mortgages have been issued.

Although the problems with subprime mortgages initiated the financial turmoil, credit concerns quickly spilled over into a number of other areas. Importantly, the secondary market for securities backed by prime jumbo mortgages also contracted, and the issuance of such securities has declined significantly. Prime jumbo loans are still being made to prospective home purchasers, but they are at higher spreads and have more-restrictive terms. Concerns about mortgage-backed securities and structured credit products (even those unrelated to mortgages) also greatly reduced investor appetite for asset-backed commercial paper, although that market has improved somewhat recently. In the area of business credit, investors shied away from financing leveraged buyouts and from purchasing speculative-grade corporate bonds. And some larger banks, concerned about potentially large and difficult-to-predict draws on their liquidity and balance sheet capacity, became less willing to provide funding to their customers or to each other.

To be sure, the recent developments may well lead to a healthier financial system in the medium to long term: Increased investor scrutiny of structured credit products is likely to lead ultimately to greater transparency in these products and to better differentiation among assets of varying quality. Investors have also become more cautious and are demanding greater compensation for bearing risk. In the short term, however, these events do imply a greater measure of financial restraint on economic growth as credit becomes more expensive and difficult to obtain.

Federal Reserve Policy Actions

At the height of the recent financial turmoil, the Federal Reserve took a number of steps to help markets return to more orderly functioning. The Fed increased liquidity in short-term money markets in early August through larger-than-normal open market operations. And on August 17, the Federal Reserve Board cut the discount rate—the rate at which it lends directly to banks—50 basis points, or 1/2 percentage point, and subsequently took several additional measures. These efforts to provide liquidity appear to have been helpful on the whole, but the functioning of a number of important markets remained impaired.

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