Factors affecting the Distribution of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Loans across Household Income Groups

The purpose of the paper is to understand the soci-economic factors affecting the distribution of community reinvestment act loans across four income groups using county level information from 1996-2004 for the delta region. The specific objectives of the paper 1) Estimate an seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) to examine the factors affecting the distribution of loan across income groups 2) Prior to the estimation of SUR, test for autocorrelation, heteroskedasticity and time series properties of the variables. Background To promote depository financial institutions to serve the credit needs of moderate and lower income neighborhoods, the U.S. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1977. The CRA was introduced to prevent "redlining" or the practice of financial institutions excluding moderate and low-income neighborhoods from receiving adequate or fair financial services. Further, CRA was implemented to ensure that banks provided services to farm and non-farm communities. Economists, have examined of the Community Reinvestment Act with regard to issues related to banking and treasury, policies, politics and economic related analysis. However, the question still remains "Is redlining still present or it is simply a case of supply and demand?" Are banks providing services where they are needed in order to improve profitability or are they avoiding low-income areas because they are perceived to pose too much risk? Are the results of earlier studies an indication that more banks are located where there is more economic growth and that is the reason that more loans are coming from these more economically advanced areas? In this paper, we specifically examine the importance of higher levels of education, population growth, economic growth, income levels and sales growth on the amount and number of CRA loans approved. We use county level data for the delta region spread across three states: Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana for the period, 1996-2004. We estimate seemingly unrelated regression with the amount and/or number of CRA loans as the endogenous variables. Econometric Methods and Data Seemingly unrelated regression also called Zellner estimation, is a generalization of ordinary least squares for multi-equation systems. Like ordinary least squares, the seemingly unrelated regression method assumes that all, regressors are independent variables, but seemingly unrelated regression uses the correlations among the errors in different equations to improve the regression estimates. The seemingly unrelated regression method requires an initial ordinary least squares regression to compute residuals. The ordinary least squares residuals are used to estimate the cross-equation covariance matrix. The seemingly unrelated regression for the four income levels: low income (<$100,000), moderate income ($100,000 - $250,000), medium income (>$250,000) and high income (< million dollars) can be represented by the econometric model as: (1.1) where is the vector of endogenous variable, i.e., the amount and/or number of CRA loans approved for the four income groups, a vector of exogenous variables that could potentially include higher levels of education, population growth, economic growth, income levels and sales growth, and are the number of delta region counties. Equation (1) is examined for the properties of autocorrelation, Heteroskedasticity and time series properties. Data to accomplish the objectives of this study will come from the CRA record for period 1996-2004 and the remaining variables are obtained from Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. Results/Expected Results and Discussion Our earlier analysis seems to indicate a direct correlation between the counties with higher levels of education, population, sales growth and the amount and number of CRA loans. According to the results of this study, the areas of the Mississippi Delta that have enjoyed favorable economic growth in the past 8 years are those that have also received the most CRA loan activity. DeSoto County by far is the Delta county that has seen the most growth and it is consistently the county that has received the most loan funds and the largest number of loans. The same results occur in Mississippi outside the Delta Region. Madison, Rankin, Harrison, and Jackson counties are urban areas that are growing faster than the rest of the state. These counties have consistently recorded more CRA loans than any other areas. According to the data the percentage of CRA loans that went to low income groups consistently was the smallest. Loans to low-income groups actually decreased overall from 1996 to 2004. The percent of CRA loans to moderate-income groups also decreased from 96 to 04. The percent of funds to medium-income groups rose, while the percent of loans in the high-income group stayed relatively the same over time. The total amount of CRA loans increased for all income groups during the study period with the exception of the low-income group which decreases slightly. Empirical application of the seemingly unrelated regression econometric model would allow us to examine the factors affecting the distribution of the CRA loans across the income groups. Further, the results from the paper would provide input to the policy makers, banking community, and investors to make a decision on the future of CRA loan distribution.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Financial Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Public Economics,

Complexity As A Shock Absorder: The Belgian Social Cube

Throughout its history, Belgium has been a complex political and social entity. The King of the Belgians was told in an official report that \u27there are no Belgians.\u2

Complejidad Como Un Amortiguador: El Cubo Social Belga

En toda su historia, B61gica ha sido una entidad compleja politicamente y socialmente

Assessment in action: A study of lecturers' and students' constructions of BTEC national assessment practice in a college engineering programme area

This research examines the nature and form of Edexcel’s BTEC National assessment policy and practice, as found within a small college Engineering Programme Area. The study investigated the salient influences and considerations underpinning both the explicit and implicit lecturer assessment constructs. The backwash effects of these constructs are considered, and how these impact on lecturers’ micro-level classroom practice, and on students’ engagement with assessment. This study also considers the effect assessment has on preparing students for progression from BTEC National programmes. BTEC National qualifications of the 2000s have their origins in the 1970s Technician Education Council’s programmes, founded on the recommendations of the Haslegrave Committee’s Report (Haslegrave, 1969). Although BTEC programmes have evolved over the past four decades, the central tenets of Haslegrave, that of unitised, teacher-assessed, broken-up summative assessment, still underpin BTEC National assessment of the 2000s. Current BTEC units are criterion-referenced, and employ formative assessment as an integral aspect of the educational ethos of the qualification.The research design involved a single site case study of assessment-in-action within a small programme area offering BTEC Nationals in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and in Manufacturing Engineering. This study used an interpretative approach, based on semi-structured interviews with seven lecturers and thirteen students during academic years 2006-2008.Findings suggest BTEC assessment practice relies significantly on the integrity of the lecturers, who construct their assessment practice by accommodating and balancing various external and internal requirements and influences placed upon them. It is through the programme area community of practice that notions of standards evolve, these being significantly influenced by cultural considerations, which impact on all aspects of assessment practice.This study finds an ethical departmental ethos in which all students should pass, and an assessment regime implicitly designed to aid student retention and achievement, but from which emanates a focus on criteria compliance. This tends to produce assessment constructs encouraging instrumental learning, where students’ achievements can be based on incremental improvement of the same assessment through multiple attempts, and where the potential for developing learning is diminished as formative assessment becomes conflated with summative intent. Both the assessment regime and the type of learning implicitly encouraged, has the potential to hamper some students’ preparedness for progression from the BTEC National programmes.Based on the findings of this research, considerations and recommendations are offered, both at the macro level of BTEC policy and at the departmental programme area micro-level of classroom practice, with the intention of enhancing students preparedness for progression from the National programmes. The study concludes that, despite radical changes in technician assessment practice having occurred since instigation of the Haslegrave recommendations, concerns emanating from assessment practice of the 1950s and 60s are still present within modern-day BTEC assessment, a case of plus ça change

Iridium, shocked minerals, and trace elements across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary at Maud Rise, Wedell Sea, and Walvis Ridge, South Atlantic Ocean

Sediments spanning a 5 meter section across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary at ODP holes 689B and 690D, Maud Rise, Wedell Sea and hole 527, Walvis Ridge, are being analyzed for shock deformation, PGE's and other trace elements (including REE's). Mineral separates from each sample were studied with optical microscopy to determine the distribution and microstructural state of quartz and feldspar present in the sediments. Samples from Maud Rise were taken of the K/T transition and at about 50 cm intervals above and below it. These samples consist of carbonate-rich sediments, with the K/T transition marked by a change from white Maastrichtian oozes to a greenish ooze with higher concentrations of altered volcanic clay and vitric ash. The Walvis Ridge site is characterized by more clay-rich sediments with average carbonate content about 60 to 70 percent. Initial results from RNAA studies indicate that iridium is present in all the Maud Rise samples in concentrations equal to or greater than 0.01 ppb (whole-rock basis). Preliminary results from optical microscopy indicate the occurrence of shock mosaicism in quartz and feldspar in all of the samples studied. The pervasiveness of shock mosaicism and presence of planar features to 2 meters from the K/T boundary indicates that a single impact or volcanic explosion 66 ma may be ruled out as responsible for the K/T event. A similar conclusion may be drawn independently from the distribution of iridium and other trace elements. Regardless of the source of the shock waves and sediment contamination, multiple events are required over a ca.0.5 my timespan; currently we favor endogenous sources

A comment on a paper by Carot et al

In a recent paper Carot et al. considered carefully the definition of cylindrical symmetry as a specialisation of the case of axial symmetry. One of their propositions states that if there is a second Killing vector, which together with the one generating the axial symmetry, forms the basis of a two-dimensional Lie algebra, then the two Killing vectors must commute, thus generating an Abelian group. In this comment a similar result, valid under considerably weaker assumptions, is recalled: any two-dimensional Lie transformation group which contains a one-dimensional subgroup whose orbits are circles, must be Abelian. The method used to prove this result is extended to apply to three-dimensional Lie transformation groups. It is shown that the existence of a one-dimensional subgroup with closed orbits restricts the Bianchi type of the associated Lie algebra to be I (Abelian), II, III, VII_0, VIII or IX. The relationship between the present approach and that of the original paper is discussed.Comment: 6 pages, Te

MAT-756: INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF RAP GRADATION ON THE EFFECTIVE BINDER CONTENT IN HOT MIX ASPHALT

Nowadays, it is common to add a little amount of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) in asphalt mixes without changing too much properties such as modulus and low temperature cracking resistance. Not only will those mixes be able to make roads last longer, but they will be a greener alternative to usual mixes. In order to make a flexible pavement design, the mixture behavior is usually characterized with the complex modulus. To have a high modulus mix, you need to control the gradation precisely even when RAP is added. When performing a mix design to incorporate RAP, it is desirable to know the RAP binder characteristics and content and its gradation. In the literature, there is no clear vision of the RAP gradation impacts on the mixture properties and field performance. The objective of this study, performed at the Pavements and Bituminous Materials Laboratory (LCMB), is to evaluate the impact of RAP gradation on Hot Mix Asphalt. This is needed to understand how much binder can be transferred during mix from RAP to virgin aggregate. In this study, a single source of RAP was separated into different sizes and mixed with a specific group of virgin aggregates. Then, according to their size, the mixes were separated again into the RAP group and virgin aggregate. While these were mixed, active RAP binder transferred to virgin aggregate. Then ignition test (ASTM D6307) was adapted to separate RAP binder from virgin aggregate. With this procedure, it was possible to see that, for a given temperature and mixing time, activated binder amount of coarse RAP particles and fine RAP particles. The Ignition test result showed that coarse RAP particles have more active binder in mix but ITS test indicated that fine RAP particles have higher strength