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Working Paper
Giving credit where credit is due? the Community Reinvestment Act and mortgage lending in lower-income neighborhoods
I identify and quantify the mortgage supply effect of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a law mandating that banks help provide credit in lower-income neighborhoods, by exploiting a discontinuity in the selection rule determining which census tracts CRA targets. Using a comprehensive source of micro data on MSA mortgage applications, I find that CRA affects bank lending primarily in large MSA's, where banks are most scrutinized. The analysis indicates that CRA's effect on bank originations was about 4% between 1994 and 1996, and expanded to 8% in 1997-2002, consistent with the timing of a ...
Working Paper
How Much Does Racial Bias Affect Mortgage Lending? Evidence from Human and Algorithmic Credit Decisions
We assess racial discrimination in mortgage approvals using confidential data on mortgage applications. Minority applicants tend to have significantly lower credit scores, higher leverage, and are less likely than White applicants to receive algorithmic approval from raceblind government-automated underwriting systems (AUS). Observable applicant-risk factors explain most of the racial disparities in lender denials. Further, we exploit the AUS data to show there are risk factors we do not directly observe, and our analysis indicates that these factors explain at least some of the residual 1-2 ...
Working Paper
Mortgage debt and household deleveraging: accounting for the decline in mortgage debt using consumer credit record data
One of the major reasons hypothesized for the tepid economic recovery thus far is the ongoing "deleveraging" process. From 2009:Q3 to 2011:Q3, aggregate household debt declined by about $1.5 trillion in real terms, with mortgage debt falling by about $1 trillion. Other than defaults, the factors driving the decline in aggregate debt are not precisely understood, in large part because the necessary data are not widely available. This paper draws on panel data consisting of individual credit records to better understand why mortgage debt has declined. I decompose changes in aggregate mortgage ...
Journal Article
The Mortgage Market in 2011: Highlights from the Data Reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
This article presents a number of key findings from a review of the data that mortgage lending institutions reported for 2011 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The article documents home-lending activity reflected in the HMDA data and places the 2011 activity in historical context. It also examines changes in mortgage market concentration in recent years and in the credit scores of recent homebuyers. In addition, the article reviews patterns of lending across different racial or ethnic and income groups and across areas that differ in terms of housing market distress. Finally, it ...
Discussion Paper
The Ins and Outs of Mortgage Debt : An Update
Real household mortgage debt has been flat over the past two years. However, as described in more detail below, new data on credit flows reveal that mortgage inflows have picked up for the first time since before the financial crisis, including to individuals with lower credit scores.
Journal Article
Residential Mortgage Lending in 2016: Evidence from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data
This article provides an overview of the 2016 data reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 and analyzes mortgage market activity over time as well as lending patterns across different demographic groups and lender types. The number of home-purchase originations was about 10 percent higher in 2016 than in 2015, and the number of refinance loans was 16 percent higher. The increase in lending was broad based across demographic and income categories.
Working Paper
Regression discontinuity estimates of the effects of the GSE act of 1992
In this paper I estimate the effect of the Underserved Areas Goal (UAG) established under the ?GSE Act?, a 1992 law mandating that the housing government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac help promote credit access and homeownership opportunities for low-income households and in low-income and minority neighborhoods. I identify the goal?s impact by taking advantage of a discontinuity in the census tract eligibility rule. Employing local linear and non-parametric regression discontinuity methods, I find that this goal has had a direct effect on GSE purchasing activity of 3-4% ...
Journal Article
The mortgage market in 2011: highlights from the data reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
This article presents a number of key findings from a review of the data that mortgage lending institutions reported for 2011 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The article documents home-lending activity reflected in the HMDA data and places the 2011 activity in historical context. It also examines changes in mortgage market concentration in recent years and in the credit scores of recent homebuyers. In addition, the article reviews patterns of lending across different racial or ethnic and income groups and across areas that differ in terms of housing market distress. Finally, it ...