http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
This dissertation presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of CRA-based protests against banks wishing to expand or merge submitted by community groups to bank regulators. There is widespread belief that these groups lobby for their underserved constituency by protesting those banks which discriminate in lending while detractors believe that community groups are more concerned with profiting from the regulation as opposed to working to increase lending within their community. Furthermore, there is a question of the effect of protests on bank applications and bank policy. Chapter I provides an overview of the debate on discrimination in mortgage lending and discusses the Community Reinvestment Act. Chapter II presents a model with profit maximizing conditions which are used in analyzing two separate models of community groups: groups that are benevolent, using protests as part of the enforcement mechanism of the CRA legislation; and groups that are opportunistic, using protests as a tool for extortion. Chapter III describes the data used in the empirical analysis of community group behavior. The data contains all bank applications for merger or expansion submitted to the Federal Reserve System (FRS), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) from 1994 through 1998. Chapter IV studies the effects of a protest on application approval and wait time. The results indicate that a protest increases the stay of an application from 34 to 61 days depending on the regulator and in most instances have no effect on its approval. Chapter V is an empirical analysis of protests and within this chapter the theoretical models developed in chapter II are tested. The results indicate that the protest decision is based strongly upon size of the lead bank submitting the application with no regard for the bank's CRA rating. The results are consistent with the opportunistic community group theory.
Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilm Inc.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-125).