Community Reinvestment Act Evidence
05/18/2011
Robert Avery, et. all. The Federal Reserve. August 2002.
“Assessing the CRA’s Necessity and Efficiency” finds that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for many loans for the disadvantaged that would not have existed otherwise. They also find that these loans sometimes resulted in a cost to the lender, but not in the “vast majority” of cases.
Read More
05/17/2010
Lei Ding, et all. The Center for Responsible Lending. May 17, 2010.
“Risky Borrowers or Risky Mortgages” attempts to determine whether loans orgininated under the Community Reinvestment Act or subprime loans are riskier. They find that CRA loans tend to carry a significantly lower risk of default than their subprime counterparts.
Read More
01/01/2009
Elizabeth Laderman and Carolina Redid. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. 2009.
"CRA Lending During the Subprime Meltdown" compares the two sides of the debate over the Community Reinvestment Act’s supposed responsibility for the subprime lending crisis. After a bit of empirical analysis, they conclude that their research should “quell if not fully lay to rest the arguments that the CRA caused the current subprime lending boom”. Indeed, they instead find CRA regulated loans were substantially less likely to be foreclosed upon.
Read More
01/07/2008
Traiger & Hinckley LLP. January 7, 2008.
“A Welcome Anomaly in the Foreclosure Crisis” finds that banks specializing in Community Reinvestment Act loans “were substantially less likely than other lenders to make the kinds of risky home purchase loans that helped fuel the foreclosure crisis”.
Read More
05/01/2005
Michael S. Bar. New York University Law Review. May 2005.
“Credit Where It Counts: The Community Reinvestment Act And Its Critics” takes on all the usual arguments against the legislation. He looks at the CRA imn the context of alternative methods of ensuring fair access, and concludes that none of them carry the same weight. Barr argues that in the fact of widespread market failures and societal discrimination, the CRA has effectively guaranteed access to loans for those who likely would have been unable to access them otherwise.
Read More
