[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-321740-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-321740-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","rooting-out-discriminationin-home-mortgage-lending","Rooting Out Discriminationin Home Mortgage Lending","","Economic Commentary examines why discrimination persists in the home mortgage market despite decades of effort and renewed visibility from Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. It compares disparities in loan denial rates across black, Hispanic, and white applicants and argues that outcomes depend on discrimination’s underlying source. The analysis distinguishes discrimination from bigotry and reviews multiple mechanisms—including bigotry and statistical discrimination—showing that effective remedies require understanding origin rather than relying solely on fair lending enforcement.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/rooting-out-discriminationin-home-mortgage-lending/321740/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/rooting-out-discriminationin-home-mortgage-lending/321740.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Ivy","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",10,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"Why does mortgage discrimination remain a persistent problem in the home lending market?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"Despite nearly three decades of effort, discrimination in home mortgage lending persists. The commentary links this persistence to a failure to understand why discrimination arises from specific underlying sources.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"What do Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data show about loan denial rates?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"The data indicate that black and Hispanic mortgage applicants are denied loans more frequently than whites. For 1994, 33.4% of black and 24.6% of Hispanic applicants were denied versus 16.4% for whites.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"How does the commentary distinguish discrimination from bigotry?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It defines discrimination as treating an individual differently due to a personal characteristic like race, while bigotry is only one possible cause of discrimination. The text argues public discourse often assumes all discrimination comes from bigotry, which can be counterproductive.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},321740,1790240563,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,101,106,111,115,120,123,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":97,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":102,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":103,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":105},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":107,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":108,"show_sort_weight":109,"slug":110},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":112,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},8,30,"research-report",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":118,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":122},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":55,"slug":125},"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":112,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":97,"language":139,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},549758252649,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/8000253669c5317157?_k=1778319167496531819","by Stanley D.Longhofer  \nzaia jusicisafudamenal scilgoal in the United States,making en-forcement of fair lending laws an impor-tant function of the Federal Reserve andother regulators.Despite nearly threedecades of effort,however,discrimina-tion in the home mortgage marketremains a vexing problem.  \nUltimately,the most effective way tocombat mortgage discriminationdepends on its underlying source.Law-makers,however,tend to ignore rootcauses when forming antidiscriminationpolicies,which are consequently lesseffective and more costly than theycould be.Our inability to deal satisfacto-rily with discrimination may resultlargely from this failure to understandwhy it arises in the first place.  \nDiscrimination's persistence in the homemortgage market has received renewedattention recently because of data madeavailable through the Home MortgageDisclosure Act.These data show thatblacks and Hispanics are denied loansmore frequently than are whites.Forinstance,in 1994(the latest year forwhich data are available),33.4 percent ofall black and 24.6 percent of all Hispanicmortgage applicants were denied loans,compared to 16.4 percent of whites.!  \n# Rooting Out Discriminationin Home Mortgage Lending\n\nSome of these disparities can be ex-plained by differences in minority appli-cants'income,wealth,and credit histo-ries—all pivotal factors in the mortgagelending decision.Nonetheless,accord-ing to a recent influential and controver-sial study by economists at the FederalReserve Bank of Boston,such factorsaccount for only part of the difference indenial rates.In the end,they found thatif minorities in the Boston area had thesame characteristics as whites,theywould be denied loans 17 percent of thetime,compared to only 11 percent forwhites.²  \nThis Economic Commentary discussesseveral possible sources of discrimina-tion in the home mortgage market,out-lines how each would manifest itself,andbriefly considers the solution most ap-propriate for each.Before continuing,however,it is important to distinguishbetween discrimination—the act of treat-ing an individual differently because of apersonal characteristic such as race—andbigotry,which is only one possible causeof discrimination.Unfortunately,muchof the public discourse about this prob-lem implies that all discrimination resultsfrom bigotry.Such rhetoric is counter-productive.Since discrimination can alsoarise from more benign intentions,inds-criminately impugning all lenders'in-tegrity by labeling them bigotsonlyserves to close their minds to the genuineproblems that do exist.  \nTo combat discrimination in thehome mortgage market effectively,itis essential to understand its origins.Although bigotry is the most conspic-uous cause of discrimination,othersare perhaps more likely and more dif-ficult to prevent.Statistical discrimi-nation can arise ifrace is correlatedwith some hard-to-measure determi-nants of creditworthiness.Alterna-tively,cultural affinity problemsmight make lenders less able to accu-rately determine a minority appli-cant's true creditworthiness.Each ofthese problems can result in illegaldiscrimination,but their solutionsmay be quite different.By channelingresources toward the appropriateremedy,policymakers can reducediscrimination by more than wouldbe possible through sole reliance onenforcement of fair lending laws.  \n■ Bigotry  \nOne obvious source of discrimination incredit markets is bigotry.Nobel laureateGary Beckerdeveloped an economicframework for analyzing bigotry,or whathe calls \"tastes for discrimination.\"3According to this theory,lenders do notmaximize profits,as is the usual assump-tion in economics.Instead,they maxi-mize their \"utility,\"taking into accountboth the profits they earn and the satis-faction they get from discriminatingagainst minorities.A bigoted lender,then,would forgo some marginally prof-itable loans to minorities in order to sat-isfy his or her taste for discrimination;the amount of profit forgone depends onthe strength of this taste.  \nThis theory h","cbCaica4Ll4w0uZY","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaica4Ll4w0uZY","pdf",1369912,"English","# Rooting Out Discriminationin Home Mortgage Lending\n## Bigotry\n## Statistical Discrimination","[{\"question\":\"Why does mortgage discrimination remain a persistent problem in the home lending market?\",\"answer\":\"Despite nearly three decades of effort, discrimination in home mortgage lending persists. The commentary links this persistence to a failure to understand why discrimination arises from specific underlying sources.\"},{\"question\":\"What do Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data show about loan denial rates?\",\"answer\":\"The data indicate that black and Hispanic mortgage applicants are denied loans more frequently than whites. For 1994, 33.4% of black and 24.6% of Hispanic applicants were denied versus 16.4% for whites.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the commentary distinguish discrimination from bigotry?\",\"answer\":\"It defines discrimination as treating an individual differently due to a personal characteristic like race, while bigotry is only one possible cause of discrimination. The text argues public discourse often assumes all discrimination comes from bigotry, which can be counterproductive.\"}]","Rooting Out Discriminationin Home Mortgage Lending | PDF",1789960127,13]