IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v141y2021i1p48-65.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Color and credit: Race, regulation, and the quality of financial services

Author

Listed:
  • Begley, Taylor A.
  • Purnanandam, Amiyatosh

Abstract

The incidence of misselling, fraud, and poor customer service by retail banks is significantly higher in areas with higher proportions of poor and minority borrowers and in areas where government regulation promotes an increased quantity of lending. Specifically, low-to-moderate-income (LMI) areas targeted by the Community Reinvestment Act have significantly worse outcomes, and this effect is larger for LMI areas with a high-minority population share. The results highlight an unintended adverse consequence of such quantity-focused regulations on the quality of credit to lower-income and minority customers.

Suggested Citation

  • Begley, Taylor A. & Purnanandam, Amiyatosh, 2021. "Color and credit: Race, regulation, and the quality of financial services," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 48-65.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:141:y:2021:i:1:p:48-65
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.03.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X2100091X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2021.03.001?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2017. "Fraudulent Income Overstatement on Mortgage Applications During the Credit Expansion of 2002 to 2005," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(6), pages 1832-1864.
    2. Sumit Agarwal & Efraim Benmelech & Nittai Bergman & Amit Seru, 2012. "Did the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Lead to Risky Lending?," NBER Working Papers 18609, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Andrew F. Haughwout & Christopher J. Mayer & Joseph Tracy, 2009. "Subprime mortgage pricing: the impact of race, ethnicity, and gender on the cost of borrowing," Staff Reports 368, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    4. Stephen L. Ross & John Yinger, 2002. "The Color of Credit: Mortgage Discrimination, Research Methodology, and Fair-Lending Enforcement," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262182289, December.
    5. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    6. Patrick Bayer & Fernando Ferreira & Stephen L. Ross, 2018. "What Drives Racial and Ethnic Differences in High-Cost Mortgages? The Role of High-Risk Lenders," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 175-205.
    7. Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru & James Witkin, 2015. "Asset Quality Misrepresentation by Financial Intermediaries: Evidence from the RMBS Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(6), pages 2635-2678, December.
    8. Agarwal, Sumit & Ben-David, Itzhak & Yao, Vincent, 2017. "Systematic mistakes in the mortgage market and lack of financial sophistication," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 42-58.
    9. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson, 2018. "Shrouded attributes, consumer myopia and information suppression in competitive markets," Chapters, in: Victor J. Tremblay & Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay (ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Industrial Organization, chapter 3, pages 40-74, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Dougal, Casey & Gao, Pengjie & Mayew, William J. & Parsons, Christopher A., 2019. "What’s in a (school) name? Racial discrimination in higher education bond markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(3), pages 570-590.
    11. Bruce Ian Carlin & Simon Gervais, 2012. "Legal Protection in Retail Financial Markets," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 68-108.
    12. Umit G. Gurun & Gregor Matvos & Amit Seru, 2016. "Advertising Expensive Mortgages," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(5), pages 2371-2416, October.
    13. 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.
    14. Lee, Hyojung & Bostic, Raphael W., 2020. "Bank adaptation to neighborhood change: Mortgage lending and the Community Reinvestment Act," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    15. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani & Sanket Korgaonkar, 2019. "Partial Deregulation and Competition: Effects on Risky Mortgage Origination," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4676-4711, October.
    16. John M. Griffin & Gonzalo Maturana, 2016. "Did Dubious Mortgage Origination Practices Distort House Prices?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(7), pages 1671-1708.
    17. Helen F. Ladd, 1998. "Evidence on Discrimination in Mortgage Lending," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 41-62, Spring.
    18. Sumit Agarwal & Gene Amromin & Itzhak Ben-David & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Douglas Evanoff, 2014. "The Effectiveness of Mandatory Mortgage Counseling: Can One Dissuade Borrowers from Choosing Risky Mortgages?," NBER Working Papers 19920, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Bruce Ian Carlin & Gustavo Manso, 2011. "Obfuscation, Learning, and the Evolution of Investor Sophistication," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(3), pages 754-785.
    20. Neil Bhutta, 2011. "The Community Reinvestment Act and Mortgage Lending to Lower Income Borrowers and Neighborhoods," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 953-983.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sabrina T. Howell & Theresa Kuchler & David Snitkof & Johannes Stroebel & Jun Wong, 2021. "Lender Automation and Racial Disparities in Credit Access," NBER Working Papers 29364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Panagiotis Avramidis & George Pennacchi & Konstantinos Serfes & Kejia Wu, 2022. "The Role of Regulation and Bank Competition in Small Firm Financing: Evidence from the Community Reinvestment Act," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(8), pages 2301-2340, December.
    3. Abhi Bhattacharya, 2023. "Consumer, bank, and stock market reaction to CFPB’s complaint data disclosure," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(1), pages 128-145, March.
    4. Ahmet Degerli & Jing Wang, 2022. "The Rise of Nonbanks and the Quality of Financial Services: Evidence from Consumer Complaints," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-059, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. J. Michael Collins & Jeff Larrimore & Carly Urban, 2021. "Does Access to Bank Accounts as a Minor Improve Financial Capability? Evidence from Minor Bank Account Laws," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-075, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. W. Scott Langford & Harrison W. Thomas & Maryann P. Feldman, 2024. "Banking for the Other Half: The Factors That Explain Banking Desert Formation," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 38(2), pages 71-81, May.
    7. Greenwald, Daniel L. & Howell, Sabrina T. & Li, Cangyuan & Yimfor, Emmanuel, 2024. "Regulatory arbitrage or random errors? Implications of race prediction algorithms in fair lending analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    8. Sabrina T. Howell & Theresa Kuchler & David Snitkof & Johannes Stroebel & Jun Wong, 2021. "Racial Disparities in Access to Small Business Credit: Evidence from the Paycheck Protection Program," CESifo Working Paper Series 9345, CESifo.
    9. Bucciol, Alessandro & Papadovasilaki, Dimitra, 2023. "Portfolio decisions and perceived racial discrimination," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    10. Xudong An & Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Ross Levine & Raluca Roman, 2023. "Social Capital and Mortgages," Working Papers 23-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    11. Dou, Yiwei & Hung, Mingyi & She, Guoman & Wang, Lynn Linghuan, 2024. "Learning from peers: Evidence from disclosure of consumer complaints," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2).
    12. Bin Wei & Feng Zhao, 2022. "Racial Disparities in Mortgage Lending: New Evidence Based on Processing Time," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2022-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    13. Allen N. Berger & Maryann P. Feldman & W. Scott Langford & Raluca Roman, 2023. ""Let Us Put Our Moneys Together": Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises," Working Papers 23-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    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. Manthos D. Delis & Panagiotis Papadopoulos, 2019. "Mortgage Lending Discrimination Across the U.S.: New Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 341-368, December.
    2. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    3. Mark Egan & Gregor Matvos & Amit Seru, 2019. "The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 233-295.
    4. Chan, Sewin & Haughwout, Andrew & Tracy, Joseph, 2015. "How Mortgage Finance Affects the Urban Landscape," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 987-1045, Elsevier.
    5. Andra C. Ghent & Rubén Hernández-Murillo & Michael T. Owyang, 2015. "Did Affordable Housing Legislation Contribute to the Subprime Securities Boom?," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 43(4), pages 820-854, November.
    6. Sumit Agarwal & John Grigsby & Ali Hortaçsu & Gregor Matvos & Amit Seru & Vincent Yao, 2024. "Searching for Approval," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(4), pages 1195-1231, July.
    7. Suzuki, Masatomo & Kawai, Kohei & Shimizu, Chihiro, 2022. "Discrimination against the atypical type of tenants in the Tokyo private rental housing market: Evidence from moving-in inspection and rent arrear records," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(PB).
    8. Ghent, Andra C. & Hernández-Murillo, Rubén & Owyang, Michael T., 2014. "Differences in subprime loan pricing across races and neighborhoods," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 199-215.
    9. Kim, Mee Jung & Lee, Kyung Min & Brown, J. David & Earle, John S., 2021. "Black Entrepreneurs, Job Creation, and Financial Constraints," IZA Discussion Papers 14403, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Saadi, Vahid, 2016. "Mortgage supply and the US housing boom: The role of the community reinvestment act," IWH Discussion Papers 32/2016, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    11. James Conklin & Moussa Diop & Mingming Qiu, 2022. "Religion and Mortgage Misrepresentation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(1), pages 273-295, August.
    12. Saadi, Vahid, 2019. "Mortgage supply and the US housing boom: The role of the Community Reinvestment Act," SAFE Working Paper Series 155, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2019.
    13. Beck, T.H.L. & Behr, P. & Madestam, A., 2011. "Sex and Credit : Is There a Gender Bias in Microfinance?," Other publications TiSEM 65849ab0-04f2-4dc9-9824-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Rojas, Alejandro, 2021. "Mortgage credit growth for lower-income borrowers during the 2000s housing boom: Evidence and implications," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 220-233.
    17. Thorsten Beck & Patrick Behr & Andreas Madestam, 2011. "Sex and Credit: Is There a Gender Bias in Lending?," Working Papers 411, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    18. Guiso, Luigi & Pozzi, Andrea & Tsoy, Anton & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Mistrulli, Paolo Emilio, 2022. "The cost of steering in financial markets: Evidence from the mortgage market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1209-1226.
    19. Li, Wenli & Oswald, Florian, 2017. "Recourse and residential mortgages: The case of Nevada," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 1-13.
    20. Gui, Zhengqing & Huang, Yangguang & Zhao, Xiaojian, 2024. "Financial fraud and investor awareness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 104-123.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Product quality; Discrimination; Regulation; Consumer protection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation

    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:eee:jfinec:v:141:y:2021:i:1:p:48-65. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    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.