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Reexamining the 'Role of the Community Reinvestment Act in Mortgage Supply and the U.S. Housing Boom'

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Abstract

Concerns have lingered since the 2007 subprime crisis that government housing policies promote risky mortgage lending. The first peer-reviewed evidence of a causal effect was published by the Review of Financial Studies in a paper (Saadi, 2020) linking the crisis to changes in the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1995. A review of that paper, however, shows that it misrepresents the policy changes as having taken effect in mid-1998, 2.5 years after they were implemented. When the correct timing is used, a similar analysis yields no evidence of a relationship between CRA and riskier mortgage lending. Instead, the results are shown to reflect an unrelated confounding event, the first collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market following Russia's debt default in August 1998.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth P. Brevoort, 2024. "Reexamining the 'Role of the Community Reinvestment Act in Mortgage Supply and the U.S. Housing Boom'," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-009, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2024-09
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2024.009
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Glaeser, Edward L. & Sinai, Todd (ed.), 2013. "Housing and the Financial Crisis," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226030586, June.
    2. 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.
    3. Robert J. Shiller, 2007. "Understanding recent trends in house prices and homeownership," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 89-123.
    4. Griffin, John M. & Kruger, Samuel & Maturana, Gonzalo, 2021. "What drove the 2003–2006 house price boom and subsequent collapse? Disentangling competing explanations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1007-1035.
    5. Amiyatosh Purnanandam, 2011. "Originate-to-distribute Model and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(6), pages 1881-1915.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Community Reinvestment Act (CRA); House prices; Mortgage lending; Subprime crisis;
    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
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

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