Government Loan Guarantees, Market Liquidity, and Lending Standards.

We study third-party loan guarantees in a model in which lenders can screen and sell loans before maturity when in need of liquidity. Loan guarantees improve market liquidity, reduce lending standards, and can have a positive overall welfare effect. Guarantees improve the average quality of nonguaranteed loans traded and thus, the market liquidity of these loans because of selection. This positive pecuniary externality provides a rationale for guarantee subsidies. Our results contribute to a debate about reforming government-sponsored mortgage guarantees by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, suggesting that the excessively high subsidies to these guarantees should be reduced but not completely eliminated. This paper was accepted by Kay Giesecke, finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]