Mortgage Lending in Boston: Interpreting HMDA Data

TitleMortgage Lending in Boston: Interpreting HMDA Data
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication1996
AuthorsMunnell, Alicia H., Geoffrey M. B. Tootell, Lynn E. Browne, and James McEneaney
JournalThe American Economic Review
Volume86
Issue1
Pagination25-53
ISSN0002-8282
AbstractThe Home Mortgage Disclosure Act was enacted to monitor minority and low-income access to the mortgage market. The data collected for this purpose show that minorities are more than twice as likely to be denied a mortgage as whites. Yet variables correlated with both race and creditworthiness were omitted from these data, making any conclusion about race's role in mortgage lending impossible. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston collected additional variables important to the mortgage lending decision and found that race continued to play an important, though significantly diminished, role in the decision to grant a mortgage.
URLhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2118254
Short TitleMortgage Lending in Boston