GW Work

Recent research has established that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has increased mortgage lending in low-income and minority communities. This study examines the extent to which the CRA has helped racial minorities purchase homes in predominantly white neighborhoods from which they have traditionally been excluded. Using 2000 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reports (HMDA) and 2000 decennial census data, we find that in metropolitan areas where a relatively high proportion of loans are made by institutions covered by the CRA, blacks and Latinos are more likely to purchase homes in predominantly white neighborhoods than in areas where relatively fewer loans are made by such lenders. This finding holds after controlling for a range of socioeconomic characteristics. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for revising the CRA and its enforcement mechanisms.

Author

• Squires, Gregory D.
• Friedman, Samantha

Keyword

• Public policy

Type of Work

• Other

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• GW Institute of Public Policy

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/work/tm70mv54c

License

• All rights reserved

Relationships

Items

Thumbnail	Title	Date Uploaded	Visibility	Actions
	Working_Paper_014_Reinvestment.pdf	2018-08-27	Open Access	Press to Select an action Download