WEST CHESTER, Pa. — A Moody's study from date supplied by Equifax and Moody's Investors Services that assesses how much further credit conditions will deteriorate is available at www.economy.com.

The study provides projections for first mortgage delinquency and default rates for the country and the 200 largest metropolitan areas. The models used in the study take unemployment, employment growth, house price growth, household debt service burdens and lenders' underwriting standards into account and combines them with large-scale macro-economic data to make its projections about the mortgage market. The result is a baseline and three more negative alternative scenarios.

The nation's housing and mortgage markets appear to be very fragile, and Moody's posits that if just a few thing fall the wrong way the current correction in the market could become a crash. The fallout from that on the economy would be substantial, they say. The study ends with a careful consideration of this possibility. The price of the study is $5,5995.