IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v83y2024i1p109-126.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Loan packaging decisions for beginning African American and other socially disadvantaged farmers

Author

Listed:
  • Cesar L. Escalante
  • Penghui Gao
  • William Secor

Abstract

This study presents evidence on the relative accommodation of credit requests made by minority start‐up entrepreneurs in the U.S. farm sector. Loan packaging terms (amount, interest rate, and maturity) prescribed by lending officers of the Farm Service Agency, the government's lending arm to the farm sector, are analyzed and compared across racial/ethnic and gender groups of borrowers. The intention is to discern whether prescribed loan terms are favorable and supportive of the new farms' business growth and survival goals and uncover any trends of preferential treatment for certain groups of borrowers. Econometric results did not uncover any significant deviations in the lenders' decisions for beginning African American and White farmers for all three components of the loan package. While most packaging term decisions were similar among borrowers of different racial/ethnic attributes, the only exceptional terms were significantly larger loan amounts for American Indians and higher interest rates for Hispanic Americans. Compared to farmers in the South, loan term decisions seem to align with regional concentrations of farm typologies, such as the prevalence of livestock operations in the Plains and Midwest that require longer loan repayment periods and larger crop farms in the West with higher loan amount approvals.

Suggested Citation

  • Cesar L. Escalante & Penghui Gao & William Secor, 2024. "Loan packaging decisions for beginning African American and other socially disadvantaged farmers," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 83(1), pages 109-126, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:83:y:2024:i:1:p:109-126
    DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12522
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12522
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ajes.12522?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Escalante, Cesar L. & Brooks, Rodney L. & Epperson, James E. & Stegelin, Forrest E., 2006. "Credit Risk Assessment and Racial Minority Lending at the Farm Service Agency," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 38(1), pages 1-15, April.
    2. Escalante, Cesar L. & Epperson, James E. & Raghunathan, Uthra, 2009. "Gender Bias Claims in Farm Service Agency’s Lending Decisions," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 34(2), pages 1-18, August.
    3. Thomas Boehm & Paul Thistle & Alan Schlottmann, 2006. "Rates and race: An analysis of racial disparities in mortgage rates," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 109-149.
    4. Chandra K. Dhakal & Cesar L. Escalante & Charles Dodson, 2019. "Heterogeneity of farm loan packaging term decisions: a finite mixture approach," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(18), pages 1528-1532, October.
    5. Key, Nigel & Lyons, Greg, 2019. "An Overview of Beginning Farms and Farmers," Economic Brief 301074, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    6. Ping Cheng & Zhenguo Lin & Yingchun Liu, 2015. "Racial Discrepancy in Mortgage Interest Rates," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 101-120, July.
    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. Dhakal, Chandra K. & Escalante, Cesar L., 2018. "Heterogeneity of Farm Loan Packaging Term Decisions: A Finite Mixture Model Approach," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274118, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. James B. Kau & Lu Fang & Henry J. Munneke, 2019. "An Unintended Consequence of Mortgage Financing Regulation – a Racial Disparity," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 549-588, November.
    3. Ana Claudia Sant'Anna & Kevin N. Kim & Iryna Demko, 2024. "Limits to capital: Assessing the role of race on the Paycheck Protection Program for African American farmers in America," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 217-233, March.
    4. Paolo Emilio Mistrulli & Md Taslim Uddin & Alberto Zazzaro, 2023. "Discrimination of Immigrants in Mortgage Pricing and Approval: Evidence from Italy," CSEF Working Papers 675, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    5. 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.
    6. H. Young Baek & David D. Cho, 2023. "Are Minorities Still Paying Higher Mortgage Interest Rates?," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 29(1), pages 31-47, May.
    7. Ashok K. Mishra & Gianna Short & Charles B. Dodson, 2024. "Racial disparities in farm loan application processing: Are Black farmers disadvantaged?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 111-136, March.
    8. Yan Zhang, 2013. "Fair Lending Analysis of Mortgage Pricing: Does Underwriting Matter?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 131-151, January.
    9. Bell, Jennifer & Battisti, Giuliana & Guin, Benjamin, 2023. "The greening of lending: mortgage pricing of energy transition risk," Bank of England working papers 1016, Bank of England.
    10. Bartlett, Robert & Morse, Adair & Stanton, Richard & Wallace, Nancy, 2022. "Consumer-lending discrimination in the FinTech Era," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 30-56.
    11. Yan Zhang, 2018. "Assessing Fair Lending Risks Using Race/Ethnicity Proxies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 178-197, January.
    12. Anil K. Giri & Dipak Subedi & Kathleen Kassel, 2024. "Analysis of the payments from the coronavirus food assistance program and the market facilitation program to minority producers," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 189-201, March.
    13. Tyler, Shakara S. & Moore, Eddie A., 2013. "Plight of Black Farmers in the Context of USDA Farm Loan Programs: A Research Agenda for the Future," Professional Agricultural Workers Journal (PAWJ), Professional Agricultural Workers Conference, vol. 1(1), pages 1-12.
    14. Jennifer A. Ball, 2020. "Women farmers in developed countries: a literature review," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(1), pages 147-160, March.
    15. Kristian S. Blickle & João A. C. Santos, 2022. "Unintended Consequences of "Mandatory" Flood Insurance," Staff Reports 1012, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    16. De Giorgi, Giacomo & Gambetti, Luca & Naguib, Costanza, 2020. "Life-Cycle Inequality: Blacks And Whites Differentials In Life Expectancy, Savings, Income, And Consumption," CEPR Discussion Papers 15182, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. D Dulani Jayasuriya & Mohamed Ayaz & Michael Williams, 2023. "The use of digital footprints in the US mortgage market," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(1), pages 353-401, March.
    18. Weir, Rebecca & Hadrich, Joleen & Jablonski, Becca & Bauman, Allie, 2022. "Financial performance of beginning dairy farmers in Minnesota," Staff Papers 329376, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    19. Alper Kara & Philip Molyneux, 2017. "Household Access to Mortgages in the UK," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 253-275, December.
    20. Natalya Presman & Nitzan Tzur-Ilan, 2019. "Does Location Matter? Evidence on Differential Mortgage Pricing in Israel," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2019.14, Bank of Israel.

    More about this item

    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:bla:ajecsc:v:83:y:2024:i:1:p:109-126. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    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.