\"Racial and Spatial Targeting: Segregation and Subprime Lending within and across Metropolitan Areas

Recent studies find that high levels of black-white segregation increased rates of foreclosures and subprime lending across U.S. metropolitan areas during the housing crisis. These studies speculate that segregation created distinct geographic markets that enabled subprime lenders and brokers to leverage the spatial proximity of minorities to disproportionately target minority neighborhoods. Yet, the studies do not explicitly test whether the concentration of subprime loans in minority neighborhoods varied by segregation levels. We address this shortcoming by integrating neighborhood-level data and spatial measures of segregation to examine the relationship between segregation and subprime lending across the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Controlling for alternative explanations of the housing crisis, we find that segregation is strongly associated with higher concentrations of subprime loans in clusters of minority census tracts but find no evidence of unequal lending patterns when we examine minority census tracts in an aspatial way. Moreover, residents of minority census tracts in segregated metropolitan areas had higher likelihoods of receiving subprime loans than their counterparts in less segregated metropolitan areas. Our findings demonstrate that segregation played a pivotal role in the housing crisis by creating relatively larger areas of concentrated minorities into which subprime loans could be efficiently and effectively channeled. These results are consistent with existing but untested theories on the relationship between segregation and the housing crisis in metropolitan area s.

现有研究发现，在住房危机期间，全美大都市区内的高程度黑白种族隔离（black-white segregation）推高了止赎率与次级贷款（subprime lending）发放规模。这些研究推测，种族隔离催生了差异化的地理市场，使得次级贷款放贷机构与经纪机构能够利用少数族裔群体的空间集聚特征，针对性地将营销目标集中于少数族裔社区。然而，这些研究并未直接检验少数族裔社区内的次级贷款集中度是否会随种族隔离程度的不同而产生差异。本研究针对这一研究局限，整合社区层面数据与种族隔离空间测度指标，针对全美前100个大都市区域，检验种族隔离与次级贷款发放之间的关联。在控制住房危机的其他潜在解释变量后，本研究发现：种族隔离与少数族裔人口普查街区（census tracts）集群内的次级贷款集中度呈显著正相关；但当以非空间视角审视少数族裔人口普查街区时，并未发现贷款发放模式存在不平等的证据。此外，种族隔离程度较高的大都市区域内的少数族裔人口普查街区居民，获得次级贷款的概率显著高于种族隔离程度较低的大都市区域内的少数族裔居民。本研究结果表明，种族隔离通过打造规模相对更大的少数族裔集中片区，使得次级贷款得以高效精准地定向投放，从而在住房危机中发挥了关键作用。上述结果与现有关于大都市区域内种族隔离与住房危机关联的未经验证理论相一致。