Over the last three years, the financial crisis and ensuing recession have led to tectonic shifts in the availability of credit, especially for small businesses. Data show that the number of loans to small businesses has dropped from 5.2 million loans in 2007 to 1.6 million in 2009. This trend...

The current scale of mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures - particularly in the subprime market - has sparked a renewed debate over the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and the regulations governing home mortgage lending. On one side, detractors argue that the CRA helped to precipitate the...