From New Deal institutions to capital markets: commercial consumer risk scores and the making of subprime mortgage finance

http://www.csi.ensmp.fr/Items/WorkingPapers/Download/DLWP.php?wp=WP_CSI_014.pdfCSI WORKING PAPERS SERIES 014(Provides original sociological research on the development of consumer credit scoring in the United States and its links to subprime mortgage finance.

Evaluation of Cartosat-1 Multi-Scale Digital Surface Modelling Over France

On 5 May 2005, the Indian Space Research Organization launched Cartosat-1, the eleventh satellite of its constellation, dedicated to the stereo viewing of the Earth's surface for terrain modeling and large-scale mapping, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India). In early 2006, the Indian Space Research Organization started the Cartosat-1 Scientific Assessment Programme, jointly established with the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Within this framework, this study evaluated the capabilities of digital surface modeling from Cartosat-1 stereo data for the French test sites of Mausanne les Alpilles and Salon de Provence. The investigation pointed out that for hilly territories it is possible to produce high-resolution digital surface models with a root mean square error less than 7.1 m and a linear error at 90% confidence level less than 9.5 m. The accuracy of the generated digital surface models also fulfilled the requirements of the French Reference 3D®, so Cartosat-1 data may be used to produce or update such kinds of products

Review essay: can anthropology save finance?

Gillian Tett sits in front of the blackboard in a creamy animal print cardigan, head tipped to one side, arms comfortably folded over her chest. She has the watchful air of a snow leopard, sitting, resting. Her sidelong gaze is fixed on the man in jeans next to her, Tim Collins the CEO of private equity group Ripplewood Holdings

From New Deal institutions to capital markets: commercial consumer risk scores and the making of subprime mortgage finance

Provides original sociological research on the development of consumer credit scoring in the United States and its links to subprime mortgage finance.Science and technology studies, economic sociology, social studies of finance, subprime mortgages, consumer credit, risk

From new deal institutions to capital markets: Commercial consumer risk scores and the making of subprime mortgage finance

The investment fueled US mortgage market has traditionally been sustained by New Deal institutions called government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Known as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the GSEs once dominated mortgage backed securities underwriting. The recent subprime mortgage crisis has drawn attention to the fact that during the real estate boom, these agencies were temporarily overtaken by risk tolerant channels of lending, securitization, and investment, driven by investment banks and private capital players. This research traces the movement of a specific brand of commercial consumer credit analytics into mortgage underwriting. It demonstrates that what might look like the spontaneous rise (and fall) of a 'free' market divested of direct government intervention has been thoroughly embedded in the concerted movement of calculative risk management technologies. The transformations began with a sequence of GSE decisions taken in the mid-1990's to implement a consumer risk score called a FICO® into automated underwriting systems. Having been endorsed by the GSEs, this scoring tool was gradually hardwired throughout the industry to become a distributed and collective 'market device'. As the paper will show, once modified by specific GSE interpretations the calculative properties generated by these credit bureau scores reconfigured mortgage finance into two parts: the conventional, risk-adverse, GSE conforming 'prime' and an infrastructurally distinct, risk-avaricious, investment grade 'subprime'.

What lenders see -- : a history of the Fair Isaac scorecard

In the United States, a person's credit standing is determined by private enterprise through a numerical assessment of risk called a FICO® score. The basic technology behind this scoring system is a device called a `scorecard' which was designed by the operations research firm Fair Isaac & Company Incorporated (Fair Isaac) in the late-1950s. The scorecard is a prime illustration of how military-inspired practices were adapted to manage civilian enterprise in the post-war period. Drawing upon insights from social studies of science, technology and finance as well as from business history, this dissertation chronicles Fair Isaac's efforts to introduce computer-assisted statistical techniques for screening credit applications to department stores and finance companies. Instead of treating risk assessment as a set of universal technical standards, the research examines how Fair Isaac labored to build a commercially viable technology that would work in everyday business conditions. The research finds that Fair Isaac has repeatedly shifted its development criteria to respect socially, commercially, and politically imposed mandates. The empirical chapters cross-reference the recollections of former Fair Isaac employees with documentary evidence, and recapture four moments in a long-term process of problem solving and reengineering. In its first twenty years, Fair Isaac set up a process for manufacturing scorecards from paper records (Chapter 1); redesigned the technology so buyers did not bear the costs of implementation (Chapter 2); prepared customized products that reflected the unique policy structures of financial institutions (Chapter 3); and battled regulators over political definitions of discrimination (Chapter 4). Together, these stories demonstrate that risk assessment is not a simple substitute for assessing individual creditworthiness. The original scorecard was a piece of office equipment whose purpose was to mechanically reproduce a previous pattern of performance outcomes. The tool provided creditors with customized `operating information' that projected rates of default given the way each firm processed its credit cases. The dissertation concludes by discussing the relationship between privately -engineered systems of control, internal operating consistency, and the rise of financial predictability. It challenges the claim that FICO® scores evaluate the quality of individual consumers and offers an organizational understanding of consumer credit ris

Of molecules and networks

This thesis takes the DNA molecule and its circulation between scientific researchers as an object of analysis. The study's objective was to investigate the techno-social mechanisms through which certain individual's genetic materials are imputed with research value. Two cases, representing two contrasting kinds of circulation practices, are presented. In the first, DNA samples from families diagnosed with hereditary disorders, which allow researchers a shot at the all-or-nothing game of finding genes, are a protected resource. In the second, the DNA reference panel of the CEPH (Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme Humain), made up of samples from large multi-generation families, is a widely distributed public resource. The CEPH panel was originally intended for use in genome mapping, but more recently has acted as a technology that aids in the innovation of new techniques and theories. It is argued that the difference in utility (limited or flexible) between these two types of DNA (privately or publicly held) is not found in any inherent property of the samples themselves but rather derives from the extent of the molecule's network of circulation