IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v12y1998i2p41-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evidence on Discrimination in Mortgage Lending

Author

Listed:
  • Helen F. Ladd

Abstract

Much of the controversy about whether mortgage lenders discriminate against minorities can be explained in terms of the confusion about how to define discrimination. Based on the legal definition, careful studies of loan denial rates, such as that done by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, represent an appropriate method for testing for discrimination by lenders. Based on that study, it is quite clear that lenders discriminate. The fact that minorities have higher default rates on average than whites is irrelevant to the interpretation of the race coefficient in such models. Nonetheless, more research on and discussion about the relationship between the race of the applicant and delinquencies, defaults, and losses would be desirable.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen F. Ladd, 1998. "Evidence on Discrimination in Mortgage Lending," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 41-62, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:12:y:1998:i:2:p:41-62
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.12.2.41
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.12.2.41
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James A. Berkovec & Glenn B. Canner & Stuart A. Gabriel & Timothy H. Hannan, 1998. "Discrimination, Competition, And Loan Performance In Fha Mortgage Lending," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 241-250, May.
    2. James A. Berkovec & Glenn B. Canner & Stuart A. Gabriel & Timothy H. Hannan, 1995. "Mortgage discrimination and FHA loan performance," Proceedings 456, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    3. Michael H. Schill & Susan M. Wachter, "undated". "A Tale of Two Cities: Racial and Ethnic Geographic Disparities in Home Mortgage Lending in Boston and Philadelphia," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 16-93, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    4. Yinger, John, 1986. "Measuring Racial Discrimination with Fair Housing Audits: Caught in the Act," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 881-893, December.
    5. Munnell, Alicia H. & Geoffrey M. B. Tootell & Lynn E. Browne & James McEneaney, 1996. "Mortgage Lending in Boston: Interpreting HMDA Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 25-53, March.
    6. Charles W. Calomiris & Charles M. Kahn & Stanley D. Longhofer, 1994. "Housing-finance intervention and private incentives: helping minorities and the poor," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 634-678.
    7. Hunter, William C & Walker, Mary Beth, 1996. "The Cultural Affinity Hypothesis and Mortgage Lending Decisions," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 57-70, July.
    8. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-661, September.
    9. James A. Berkovec & Glenn B. Canner & Stuart A. Gabriel & Timothy H. Hannan, 1994. "Race, redlining, and residential mortgage loan performance," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, pages 263-298.
    10. Lynn E. Browne & Geoffrey M. B. Tootell, 1995. "Mortgage lending in Boston: a response to the critics," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Sep, pages 53-78.
    11. Geoffrey M. B. Tootell, 1993. "Defaults, denials, and discrimination in mortgage lending," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Sep, pages 45-51.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Song Han, 2001. "On the Economics of Discrimination in Credit Markets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-02, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Douglas D. Evanoff & Lewis M. Segal, 1996. "CRA and fair lending regulations: resulting trends in mortgage lending," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 20(Nov), pages 19-46.
    3. Song Han, 2004. "Discrimination in Lending: Theory and Evidence," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 5-46, July.
    4. Stanley D. Longhofer & Stephen R. Peters, 1998. "Beneath the rhetoric: clarifying the debate on mortgage lending discrimination," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 34(Q IV), pages 2-13.
    5. Song Han, 2011. "Creditor Learning and Discrimination in Lending," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 1-27, October.
    6. Dawkins, Mark C., 2002. "Simultaneity bias in mortgage lending: A test of simultaneous equations models on bank-specific data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(8), pages 1593-1613, August.
    7. Stanley D. Longhofer & Stephen R. Peters, 1998. "Self-selection and discrimination in credit markets," Working Papers (Old Series) 9809, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    8. Stephen L. Ross, 2003. "What Is Known about Testing for Discrimination: Lessons Learned by Comparing across Different Markets," Working papers 2003-21, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2003.
    9. Stephen L. Ross, 2005. "The Continuing Practice and Impact of Discrimination," Working papers 2005-19, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2006.
    10. Judith Robinson, 2002. "Race, Gender, and Familial Status: Discrimination in One US Mortgage Lending Market," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 63-85.
    11. Stanley D. Longhofer, 1996. "Cultural affinity and mortgage discrimination," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Q III, pages 12-24.
    12. Paul S. Calem & Stanley D. Longhofer, 2000. "Anatomy of a fair-lending exam: the uses and limitations of statistics," Working Papers (Old Series) 0003R, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    13. Christopher Henderson, 2002. "Asymmetric Information in Community Banking and Its Relationship to Credit-Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 315-319, May.
    14. Russell Kashian & Robert Drago, 2020. "Race in relation to bank depositors and mortgage applications," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 49(3), September.
    15. Nolan Kopkin, 2018. "The conditional spatial correlations between racial prejudice and racial disparities in the market for home loans," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3596-3614, December.
    16. Paul S. Calem & Stanley D. Longhofer, 2000. "Anatomy of a fair-lending exam: the uses and limitations of statistics," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-15, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Lin, Emily Y., 2001. "Information, Neighborhood Characteristics, and Home Mortgage Lending," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 337-355, March.
    18. Gerardi, Kristopher & Willen, Paul S. & Zhang, David Hao, 2023. "Mortgage prepayment, race, and monetary policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 498-524.
    19. Block, Walter & Snow, Nicholas & Stringham, Edward, 2008. "Banks, insurance companies, and discrimination," MPRA Paper 26035, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Michael Ferguson & Stephen Peters, 1997. "Cultural Affinity and Lending Discrimination: The Impact of Underwriting Errors and Credit Risk Distribution on Applicant Denial Rates," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 11(1), pages 153-168, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:12:y:1998:i:2:p:41-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.