Simple is Simply not Enough – Features versus Labels of Complex Financial Securities
50 Pages Posted: 16 Nov 2020 Last revised: 17 Nov 2020
Date Written: November 13, 2020
Abstract
Based on a unique data set of European residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS) deals with 31 million quarterly loan observations, we examine how design features and labels of complex financial securities affect tranches’ spreads and loan performance. Exploiting the features required by the European Union’s Securitization Regulation and the STS (Simple, Transparent, Standardized) label, we find that the features of the security design and not the label are crucial for the loan performance. However, investors hardly consider the features but simply rely on the existence of the label.
Keywords: asset-backed securities, EU securitization regulation, simple transparent standardized (STS), loan performance, complex securities
JEL Classification: D82, G01, G18, G21
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation