Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two large government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that are at the center of US residential mortgage finance, are “elephants in the room” that are being ignored as part of broad-brush financial sector reform. Neither the Dodd–Frank Act nor recently proposed overhauls of Dodd–Frank have addressed reform of the GSEs’ structures, although the GSEs were placed in government conservatorships in early September 2008 and have remained in that state since then. In this article, we review what the GSEs do and how they got themselves into financial difficulties, and we provide an overview of some of the major proposals for reforming the US residential mortgage finance system. We conclude with our own ideas and suggestions for how housing finance, as well as housing policy more generally, should be reformed.

中文翻译：

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如何处理GSE？

房利美（Fannie Mae）和房地美（Freddie Mac）是美国住宅抵押融资的中心，是两家大型政府资助的企业（GSE），它们是“房间里的大象”，在广泛的金融部门改革中被忽略。尽管《多德-弗兰克法案》（Dodd-Frank Act）和最近提议的《多德-弗兰克法案》（Dodd-Frank）改革都没有涉及对GSE的结构进行改革，尽管GSE于2008年9月上旬被置于政府保护区，并从那时起一直保持在该州。在本文中，我们回顾了GSE的工作以及它们如何陷入财务困境，并概述了改革美国住宅抵押金融系统的一些主要建议。最后，我们就如何改革住房金融以及更广泛的住房政策提出了自己的想法和建议。