Over the past forty years, legislation has been enacted at the federal, state, and local levels to regulate the banking industry and protect individuals against unfair lending practices. As a result of the Great Recession, financial and housing markets have experienced significant distress, making efforts towards oversight and accountability of particular value.
To support this effort, Econsult Solutions, Inc. examined lending transactions and residential data from Philadelphia, as well as other four cities, to determine if discriminatory practices might exist in the home lending process. Our analysis builds off of work we performed for the cities of Philadelphia and New York City on home lending disparities in communities of color and low-income communities. The data sources used in this analysis are all publicly available, including 2014 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), and the American Community Survey 2010-2014 Five Year Estimates datasets.
If you’re interested in this topic, you may want to read our related articles:
- Changes to HMDA could reveal where inequitable banking practice are occurring
- Mapping banking data: Demonstrating the banking industry’s affects on communities
Dr. Akira Drake Rodriguez is an experienced DBE analyst, and has been an integral part of the consulting team working on the City of Philadelphia Fair Lending Depository and Disparity studies since 2007.
Brooke Queenan is a Senior Research Analyst at Econsult Solutions, Inc. At ESI, Brooke is involved in a variety of economic development and public policy projects including assignments focused on evaluating affordable housing policy and government reform and oversight.