The authors' simple model of the mortgage underwriting process provides a framework within which to define discrimination and various notions of the default rate. By providing those with differing views a common framework for discussing their positions, the model clarifies and reconciles some of...

Detecting and measuring discrimination in the pricing of mortgage loans present unique challenges for bank regulators. This Commentary outlines how loans are priced in the mortgage market and the difficulties involved in comparing the prices charged to different borrowers.

In this paper, we consider the role of statistical analysis in fair-lending compliance examinations. We present a case study of an actual fair-lending examination of a large mortgage lender, demonstrating how statistical techniques can be a valuable tool in focusing examiner efforts to either...

An argument that racial discrimination in the home mortgage market arises not only from bigotry, but from statistical discrimination (wherein race is correlated with some hard-to-measure determinants of creditworthiness) and from a lack of cultural affinity between lenders and minorities. The...

Mortgage brokers play an important role in the housing finance market, but they also present unique challenges to regulators attempting to enforce fair lending laws. Should lenders be held responsible for the pricing decisions of brokers from whom they receive loan applications, or should fair...

An argument that the legislation aimed at making private mortgage insurance more fair and affordable for homeowners could actually hurt the very borrowers it is intended to help by restricting the availability of mortgage loans and making them more costly.

A retrospective on the debate over the presence of discrimination in the residential mortgage market, examining some of the evidence that's been gathered since the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published its 1992 study concluding that minority applicants were over 50 percent more likely to be...

This paper increases understanding of the causes and consequences of discrimination in credit markets. It develops an underwriting model in which lenders use a simple Bayesian updating process to evaluate applicant creditworthiness. It also models individuals' self-selection behavior to show how...