RESPONSIBLE LENDING LAWS: ESSENTIAL DEVELOPMENT OR OVERREACTION?

Responsible Consumer Lending

The Fair Lending Laws and Their Enforcement

J ournalists, businessmen, politicians, and regulators are paying increasing attention to the subject of discrimination in lending, with particular emphasis on mortgage lending. It sometimes seems as though the main issues in antidiscrimination efforts have shifted from education and labor markets to the credit markets. Two different federal laws deal with discrimination in lending: the Fair Ho...

The Impact of Anti-Predatory Lending Laws on Mortgage Volume∗

In this paper, I test the hypothesis that anti-predatory lending laws inhibited the volume of mortgage lending during the housing-bubble period. I use cross-state variation in the strictness of these laws and their application only to mortgage refinancing as opposed to home purchases to develop a difference-in-difference estimate of the impact of these laws on mortgage volume. Consistent with m...

Foreign Currency Lending - Borrower or Bank Driven?

Given current concerns on foreign currency exposures in emerging economies, we examine the currency denomination of bank loans. We compare the currency requested by borrowers and the currency decision subsequently made by a bank in Bulgaria prior to the current crisis. We analyze more than hundred thousand loans to sixty thousand different firms granted during the period 2003-2007. We relate th...

Predatory Lending and Community Development at Loggerheads