For all but the most credit-worthy companies, it is more efficient to finance large pools of assets that have predictable behavioral characteristics through non-standard arrangements. These off-balance sheet structures allow credit exposures to be tailored to investor risk, asset class, and an ever-increasing diversity of idiosyncratic needs on the part of issuers and investors. The discipline that addresses these structures, which is called structured finance or securitization, is almost twenty years old, and has become a ubiquitous element of modern financial management. Yet, it has not been |