Neighborhood information and home mortgage lending.

An examination of how information about a neighborhood affects the level of lending activity in it--specifically, whether lenders deny mortgage applications at higher rates in neighborhoods where they have little experience in evaluating applications and/or where the lending community in general lacks such experience.Mortgages ; Discrimination in mortgage loans

Lender consistency in housing credit markets

An examination of how and why individual financial institutions vary in their propensity to attract and approve mortgage applications from minorities, using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.Mortgages ; Housing - Finance ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

Cross-lender variation in home mortgage lending

A lender-specific analysis of differences in minority and low-income mortgage loan originations using new applicant-level data gathered under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975.Home Mortgage Disclosure Act ; Mortgages ; Discrimination in mortgage loans

Home mortgage lending by the numbers

A look at some of the issues associated with reports that minority applicants for home mortgage loans are far more likely than whites to be denied credit. The authors raise the concern that simple comparisons of denial rates are not sufficient for grasping the complexities surrounding community-oriented lending.Mortgages ; Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

Accounting for racial differences in housing credit markets

A documentation of racial and neighborhood differences in home mortgage denial rates using data collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, exploring the extent to which objective lending criteria are responsible for observed differences. The authors find persistent variations in denial rates between white and minority applicants, but emphasize that the HMDA data do not contain enough relevant information to draw any firm conclusions regarding causation.Discrimination in mortgage loans ; Mortgages ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act ; Community Reinvestment Act of 1977

Posted rates as signals in mortgage lending markets

A discussion of how mortgage lenders might use posted lending terms to signal both their eagerness to take new loan applications and their lending standards.Mortgages ; Interest rates

Has multiculturalism failed in Britain?

This paper subjects the criticisms advanced against multiculturalism to empirical test. It asks whether ethno-religious groups lead ?parallel lives? and, in consequence, fail to integrate with the wider society. It looks in particular at the alleged corrosive effects of multiculturalism, specifically at the maintenance of an ethnic rather than a British identity, social distance from white people and willingness to contemplate violent protest, but finds that all groups alike have displayed major change across the generations in the direction of a British identity and reduced social distance. It finds no evidence that rates of intergenerational change have been slower among ethno-religious groups that have made successful claims for cultural recognition. In contrast, lower levels of integration are associated with perceptions of individual or group discrimination

A social scientific framework for social systems in online video games: Building a better looking for raid loot system in World of Warcraft

This paper examines social behavior in the online video game World of Warcraft. Specifically focusing on one element of social design: the behavior of players in the first release of Looking-for-Raid (LFR) loot system of World of Warcraft. It uses lens of economic game theory, combined with Williams (2010) mapping principle and a modern theoretical account of human decision-making, to explore how theory about individual interactions in well-defined contexts (games) can explain collective behavior. It provides some support for this theoretical approach with an examination of data collected as part of an ethnographic study, through focus groups, and a survey distributed to 333 World of Warcraft players. It concludes with a discussion of the results and some guidelines for predicting collective outcomes in certain types of online games using the introduced framework. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The adipocyte: a model for integration of endocrine and metabolic signaling in energy metabolism regulation

The ability to ensure continuous availability of energy despite highly variable supplies in the environment is a major determinant of the survival of all species. In higher organisms, including mammals, the capacity to efficiently store excess energy as triglycerides in adipocytes, from which stored energy could be rapidly released for use at other sites, was developed. To orchestrate the processes of energy storage and release, highly integrated systems operating on several physiological levels have evolved. The adipocyte is no longer considered a passive bystander, because fat cells actively secrete many members of the cytokine family, such as leptin, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and interleukin-6, among other cytokine signals, which influence peripheral fuel storage, mobilization, and combustion, as well as energy homeostasis. The existence of a network of adipose tissue signaling pathways, arranged in a hierarchical fashion, constitutes a metabolic repertoire that enables the organism to adapt to a wide range of different metabolic challenges, such as starvation, stress, infection, and short periods of gross energy excess