The Community Reinvestment Act and Mortgage Lending to Lower Income Borrowers and Neighborhoods
评估了《社区再投资法案》对低收入群体和社区抵押贷款的影响，发现该法案在1990年代末和2000年代初的大都市区有显著效果，但整体影响不大，并探讨了政府干预信贷市场的合理性。
This paper evaluates the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a law mandating that banks help meet the credit needs of lower income households and neighborhoods. To measure the effect of the law on lending to targeted groups since 1994, I take advantage of discontinuous targeting rules and abrupt changes in target status. On average, the CRA appears to have had little impact on mortgage lending, even during the mid-2000s, when lending to lower income areas nevertheless soared. I do find a significant effect during the late 1990s and early 2000s in large metropolitan areas, when and where the CRA may have been most binding. I use this episode to test the effect of the CRA on overall mortgage availability—that is, lending by both regulated and unregulated institutions. The results are consistent with the notion that government intervention in credit markets may be justified on the grounds that information externalities exist and can depress credit supply.