The best paper on the origins of the subprime crisis

The WSJ tells the story of A.K. Barnett-Hart, a Harvard undergraduate who has written a thesis about the market for subprime mortgage-backed CDOs that remains more interesting than any single piece of Wall Street research on the subject. While every economist was explaining that subprime loans package in obscure CDOs rated way too high led to a meltdown, she was the first to provide the much needed empirical evidence. She does have some pretty nice graphs indeed. Grande AK!
“After writing my thesis, it became clear to me that the culture at these investment banks needed to change and that incentives needed to be realigned to reward more than just short-term profit seeking”. She's now  a  financial analyst at a large New York investment bank. Good luck!