by Esther Leibel Vinokurova’s analysis of the development of the MBS market is based on a massive archival database (366 industry documents and periodicals and 13 books from 1960 to 2008), along with 21 semi-structured interviews with industry participants and regulators. Her study reveals that to make MBS more acceptable to investors, issuers pursued two parallel strategies. First, they repositioned MBS to make them look more similar to bonds (for example, by standardizing the MBS documentation and aggregating multiple mortgages to issue securities in larger amounts). Second, and more importantly, they took advantage of the malleability of the customer perceptions … Continue reading “Reshaping Demand Landscapes: How Firms Change Customer Preferences to Better Fit their Products.” A Conversation with the Author