Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Mortgage Lending: New Evidence from Expanded HMDA Data

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lewis-Faupel, Sean, Tenev, Nicholas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Lewis-Faupel, Sean
Tenev, Nicholas
author_facet Lewis-Faupel, Sean
Tenev, Nicholas
contents This paper investigates gaps in access to and the cost of housing credit by race and ethnicity using the near universe of U.S. mortgage applications. Our data contain borrower creditworthiness variables that have historically been absent from industry-wide application data and that are likely to affect application approval and loan pricing. We find large unconditional disparities in approval and pricing between racial and ethnic groups. After conditioning on key elements of observable borrower creditworthiness, these disparities are smaller but remain economically meaningful. Sensitivity analysis indicates that omitted factors as predictive of approval/pricing and race/ethnicity as credit score can explain some of the pricing disparities but cannot explain the approval disparities. Taken together, our results suggest that credit score, income, and down payment requirements significantly contribute to disparities in mortgage access and affordability but that other systemic barriers are also responsible for a large share of disparate outcomes in the mortgage market.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_00895
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Mortgage Lending: New Evidence from Expanded HMDA Data
Lewis-Faupel, Sean
Tenev, Nicholas
General Economics
Economics
This paper investigates gaps in access to and the cost of housing credit by race and ethnicity using the near universe of U.S. mortgage applications. Our data contain borrower creditworthiness variables that have historically been absent from industry-wide application data and that are likely to affect application approval and loan pricing. We find large unconditional disparities in approval and pricing between racial and ethnic groups. After conditioning on key elements of observable borrower creditworthiness, these disparities are smaller but remain economically meaningful. Sensitivity analysis indicates that omitted factors as predictive of approval/pricing and race/ethnicity as credit score can explain some of the pricing disparities but cannot explain the approval disparities. Taken together, our results suggest that credit score, income, and down payment requirements significantly contribute to disparities in mortgage access and affordability but that other systemic barriers are also responsible for a large share of disparate outcomes in the mortgage market.
title Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Mortgage Lending: New Evidence from Expanded HMDA Data
topic General Economics
Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.00895