Do bank branches matter anymore?

Bank branches have been disappearing in some major metropolitan areas, as their populations and economic activity decline. Our research suggests that brick-and-mortar branches provide tangible benefi ts to consumers, especially in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. When branches are located in these areas, borrowers living there default less and have greater access to credit.Banks and banking - Ohio ; Branch banks ; Banks and banking - Research

The Market for Reverse Mortgages among Older Americans

This paper examines the usage of reverse mortgages among mortgage borrowers, as well as rejected applicants for new mortgage credit who are age 62+. We find that 17-27 percent of actual and rejected borrowers would have qualified for a HECM reverse mortgage, or nine to 14 times the size of the actual HECM market. The existence of a large number of seniors with an existing mortgage or taking out a new mortgage with quite high LTVs (57-65%, depending on the product) suggests that many seniors do, in fact utilize home equity in order to fund their retirement. Yet they choose products that require monthly payments lasting decades into retirement and rising as a share of (declining) income as they age. We consider a number of possible explanations for why seniors in the US do not spend home equity and rely on loans with high payments, including precautionary savings for health shocks, bequest motives, high costs of reverse mortgages, and the lack of brand name institutions in the reverse mortgage business

OSU Extension Housing Corps—Testing an Innovate Approach to Foreclosure Prevention in Rural Counties

An AmeriCorps program at OSU Extension offices was tested in rural Ohio counties with particularly high foreclosure growth rates. The goal was to increase rural homeowners\u27 awareness about the statewide foreclosure prevention efforts. Fourteen AmeriCorps members provided rural homeowners with information and assisted with the online enrollment in the Save the Dream Ohio program. Despite its challenges, the program was successful in reaching over 7,000 homeowners, in engaging about 150 community volunteers, and in providing professional and personal development opportunities of over 200 hours to each AmeriCorps member

Beyond Cans and Capacity Nonprofit Roles and Service Network Objectives in an Emergency Food Network

Many essential public services are provided through networks of community‐based nonprofit organizations. Previous research has demonstrated that simply providing additional resources to these organizations is insufficient to better address demands for public services. We also know little about how and why these organizations adopt network‐level objectives related to service provision. In this analysis, we expand the focus of service provision beyond capacity to incorporate the unique roles that define the very existence of nonprofit organizations, and how these roles affect organizational behavior with respect to service network objectives. We use focus group, survey, and administrative data from one hundred community‐based nonprofit organizations in an emergency food service network to explore the relationships among capacity, roles, and specific program objectives

Rich Opportunities from Collaboration with a State Housing Finance Agency

A partnership between Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Housing Finance Agency blends effective community outreach with rigorous research. Community outreach of the partners ranges from home buyer education to foreclosure prevention in Ohio. Research projects of the partnership target program design, pilot testing, and evaluation. The partnership thrives through the common goal of advancing the financial health and welfare of low-income individuals and families in Ohio. The Ohio example provides encouragement for other state Extension services to collaborate on statewide housing and community development opportunities with state housing finance agencies

The Effects of Administrative Burden on Program Equity and Performance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in a Foreclosure Prevention Program

In this article, we examine the effects of reforms to reduce administrative burden in a foreclosure prevention program by streamlining the application process and reducing applicant wait times. We find that the reforms are associated with a significant 23 percent increase in the rate of benefit receipt and a 7.5 percent decrease in the foreclosure rate. These effects are even larger for applicants with more difficult-to-document hardship situations. However, we also find evidence of congestion, where the elimination of documentation requirements increased processing times for applicants, undoing some of the positive benefits. These findings suggest that shifting the documentation burden to the state without sufficiently expanding state capacity may substitute one form of administrative burden for another

WP 2016-351

This paper examines how the extraction of home equity, including but not limited to equity extracted through reverse mortgages, affects credit outcomes of senior households. We use data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel, supplemented with our unique credit panel dataset of reverse mortgage borrowers. We track credit outcomes for seniors who extracted equity through cash-out refinancing, home equity lines of credit or home equity loans between 2008 and 2011, and a random sample of nonextractors. We estimate differences-in-differences by extraction channel using individual, fixed-effects panel regression. We find that seniors extracting equity through reverse mortgages have greater reductions in consumer debt, and are less likely to become delinquent or foreclose three years post origination relative to other extractors and nonextractors. These effects are greater among households who experienced a credit shock within the two years prior to loan origination. To help isolate the effect of the extraction channel on credit outcomes, we re-estimate our models with a matched sample of consumers at the time of extraction. We find that otherwise similar HECM borrowers have larger reductions in credit card debt post-extraction than other equity borrowers and non-borrowers, with no significant difference in the rates of delinquency on non-housing debt post extraction. For HECM borrowers, we find that increased initial withdrawal and increased monthly cash flow contribute to the reduction in credit card debt.Social Security Administration, RRC08098401, R0UM16-12http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134705/1/wp351.pdfDescription of wp351.pdf : Working pape

Response Regarding Bureau Financial Education Programs (Docket No. CFPB-2018-0015)

Response discussing whether the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau should continue its financial education programs

Law as a Tool for Preventing Chronic Diseases: Expanding the Spectrum of Effective Public Health Strategies

Law, which is a fundamental element of effective public health policy and practice, played a crucial role in many of public health's greatest achievements of the 20th century. Still, conceptual legal frameworks for the systematic application of law to chronic disease prevention and control have not been fully recognized and used to address public health needs. Development and implementation of legal frameworks could broaden the range of effective public health strategies and provide valuable tools for the public health workforce, especially for state and local health department program managers and state and national policy makers. In an effort to expand the range of effective public health interventions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will work with its partners to explore the development of systematic legal frameworks as a tool for preventing chronic diseases and addressing the growing epidemic of obesity, heart disease, stroke, and other chronic diseases and their risk factors

The spillover effect of midwife attrition from the Nigerian midwives service scheme

Abstract Background The Nigerian Midwives Service Scheme (MSS) increased use of antenatal services at rural public sector clinics. However, it is unclear if women who would not have otherwise sought care, or those who would have sought care in rural private sector clinics caused this change. Additionally, it is also unclear if the reported midwife attrition was associated with a spillover of the scheme’s effect on urban areas. We sought to answer these two questions using data from two nationally representative surveys. Methods We used an interrupted time series model to assess trends in the use of obstetric (i.e. antenatal and delivery) services among rural and urban respondents in the 2008 and 2013 Nigerian demographic and health surveys. Results We found that the MSS led to a 5-percentage point increase in the use of antenatal services at rural public sector clinics, corroborating findings from a previous study. This change was driven by women who would not have sought care otherwise. We also found that there was a 4-percentage point increase in the use of delivery services at urban public sector clinics, and a concurrent 4-percentage point decrease in urban home deliveries. These changes are most likely explained by midwives’ attrition and exemplify a spillover of the scheme’s effect. Conclusion Midwife attrition from the Nigerian MSS was associated with a spillover of the scheme’s effect on the use of delivery services, on urban areas