Anecdotal evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) influences the lending behavior of financial institutions has not been uniformly supported by empirical research. We revisit this issue by evaluating changes in low-income mortgage lending at commercial banks over the 1992-96 period....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine whether lending qualifying for credit under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is associated with how broadly banks define the assessment areas (AAs) within which they operate. Both are identified as components of performance for purposes...

We hypothesize that features of European capital markets used to distinguish market reliance and investor protection have predictably influenced emerging national differences in bank capitalization, growth, and choice of income-producing activities. We characterize countries' capital regimes as...

Significant disagreement exists as to whether the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) influences the lending behavior of financial institutions. We conduct empirical tests on the lending of banks directly affected by regulatory enforcement of the CRA those experiencing upgrades or downgrades in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of regulatory reform on the asset allocation and capitalization of Chinese banks from 2002 to 2007, a period following China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Design/methodology/approach – The evidence rejects a...