The CRA: outstanding, and needs to improve

Community Reinvestment Act of 1977

The Housing Market Cannot Fully Recover Without a Robust Rental Policy

There is no one explanation for why access to mortgage credit remains so tight this far into the housing recovery, nor is there a consensus on why our national homeownership rate has fallen to a fifty-year low, but one thing is clear: the homeownership and rental markets are two sides of the same coin. As such, policymakers must understand that pressures and problems in one have implications for the other. As we disentangle and address the interwoven causes of our credit access and homeownership challenges, we do have a set of affordable rental policies and programs, proven effective and informed by ongoing research and best-practice executions. Free from legacy obligations, and with fresh eyes, new ideas, and a modest investment, the new administration has a tremendous opportunity to meet our most urgent affordable rental needs right out of the block. What should constitute that package of policies and programs is the focus of this article

"Mortgage Default Among Rural, Low-Income Borrowers"

In this working paper, Quercia, McCarthy, and Stegman use data obtained on 874 low income, rural borrowers participating in the Section 502 Home Ownership program administered by the Farmer's Home Administration (FmHA), and apply two multivariate proportional hazard models in order to analyze default decisions among these borrowers over time. The authors cite two key findings relating to default literature: (1) that contrary to prior findings, the size of the mortgage payment relative to borrower income plays a significant part in the default decision; and (2) borrower characteristics traditionally deemed risky (including minority status or being a female head of household) had no significant effect on borrower default. Rather, borrower-related factors--such as a change in marital status or the exodus of children from the household--played a larger part in the default decisions of borrowers participating in the FmHA program.

NC's Anti-Predatory Lending Law: Doing What It's Supposed To Do: A Reply

We reply to criticisms of our recent study about North Carolina's Anti-Predatory Lending Law reducing predatory loan terms and preserving access to credit (NC's Anti-Predatory Lending Law: Doing What it's Supposed to Do). To examine whether the decline in overall subprime lending in North Carolina, following passage of the predatory lending law, was due to a decline in loans with legitimate terms or to a reduction in loans with abusive terms, we examined specific market segments and market practices using loan level data from the Loan Performance Asset Backed Securities (ABS) database. Our study revealed that, although the total volume of subprime originations in North Carolina declined, the number of home purchase loans was unaffected by the law. Given the robustness of the LP data, we are baffled by the criticism and disappointed by confusion that has arisen over mistaken data interpretation. For reasons discussed in this paper, we stand by our descriptive study and will continue to use LP data in our future work.Technology and Industry, Regulatory Reform

Carbon Trading: Theory and Practice

We present a summary of current initiatives to climate change management including a review of existing carbon trading schemes and the economic arguments supporting those schemes. We also outline conditions under which the existing carbon market structures are optimal as well as those under which improvements upon the current schemes can be made

Standardized natural product cannabis in pain management and observations at a Canadian compassion society: a case report

An adult Caucasian male with excruciating pains following multiple traumas was monitored, daily, over one year while managing chronic pain by self-administering quantifiable amounts of natural cannabis. Tetrahydrocannabinol, Cannabidiol, and Cannabinol were all measured in tinctures, capsules, smoke-able product plus some baked goods, prior to their administration. By allowing standardization, the subject was able to develop a daily regimen of pain management that was resistant to a battery of most patent analgesics

Reflections on the Low Income Housing Issue (Commentary)

Between fiscal years 1979 and 1986, the low income housing sector has borne the brunt of the "Reagan revolution." During this time, annual funding for low income housing programs declined by more than twothirds in current dollars (from $32 billion a year to$9.9 billion), and by three-quarters in inflation-adjusted dollars. Housing advocates across the country have been numbed by these draconian cuts in low income housing programs, by repeated Administration claims that housing resources are best produced and allocated through the market mechanisms, and by government plans to privatize the FHA and get out of the housing business. Not surprisingly, much of the energies of these housing advocates have been devoted to preserving whatever programs they can rather than systematically rethinking what an appropriate federal housing role should be in the contemporary policy environment. What creative thinking is taking place among low-income housing advocates tends to be premised on the need for an even greater federal commitment to low income housing than existed either before the Reagan victory or during the 1960s, the height of liberal housing policy-making and program implementation. Rather than addressing the more practical and difficult issues of how increasingly scarce federal housing resources should be strategically allocated among a number of competing uses, housing advocates behave as if a Democratic administration in 1988 would eagerly embrace their ambitious housing agenda. Unfortunately, this is just wishful thinking

Low Income Home Ownership: Now More Than Ever

In late 1989, members of the American Society ofReal Estate Counselors participated in a survey about the major forces that will influence real estate over the next two decades. The respondees agreed overwhelmingly that the economic environment of the United States would determine the vitality of the real estate market. Despite a soft economy, there was substantial optimism. Nearly half felt that interest rates would stabilize at about 9 percent over the next 10-20 years. Of the remainder, however, almost twice as many expected interest rates to increase as expected them to fall. The more optimistic expectations were based on a belief, shared by nearly two-thirds of the experts, that the United States would become more competitive in world markets during the next twenty years, resulting in an improvement in the U.S. balance of trade