Selling places: the marketing and promotion of towns and cities 1850-2000.

https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/Workingpapers/PDF/ppdp0904.pdf

Why don't Lenders renegotiate more home mortgages? Redefaults, self-cures and securitization

Media Effects and Society

Crisis management research (1985–2020) in the hospitality and tourism industry: A review and research agenda

This study explores the interaction between environmental consciousness and sustainable food attributes as predictors in the market segmentation process for sustainable foods with respect to United States (U.S.) Generation Z (Gen Z) consumers. This study was executed using a cross-national, web-based survey to analyze and categorize Gen Z female (n = 435) and male (n = 377) consumers between 18 and 23 years of age living in the continental United States. The objectives of this study were to classify U.S. Gen Z consumers into unique segments based on their environmental consciousness and to assess the functional relationships among the following: (a) their degree of ecological awareness; (b) the importance of the perception of sustainable food attributes; (c) their food choices associated with healthy eating habits; and (d) sociodemographics. Survey data were analyzed using cluster analysis of consumer groups based on environmental consciousness. Environmental consciousness was measured using a composite score of the environmental involvement scale and the environmental values scale. Gen Z consumers with high environmental consciousness (sustainable activists) and moderate ecological awareness (sustainable believers) considered more eco-friendly and healthy product attributes when purchasing sustainable food, whereas Gen Z consumers with low environmental consciousness (sustainable moderates) considered more extrinsic product attributes (e.g., price and convenience). Furthermore, the results indicate that food choices associated with healthy eating habits could be used to develop a profile for different eco-conscious Gen Z consumer groups. The contributions of this study are twofold. First, for academic researchers, this paper extends marketing segmentation research concerning environmentally sensitive young consumers. Second, for industry professionals, this study provides food retailers or food service operators with sustainable consumer values that will aid in the development of effective, green marketing strategies to better attract and meet the sustainability expectations of Gen Z—the consumer segment with the most spending power of any generation.

U.S. Sustainable Food Market Generation Z Consumer Segments

As US states face budgetary constraints, lawmakers are seeking justification for investment in state funded and operated entities such as state parks. The purpose of this paper is to develop a state park evaluation model that takes into account economic and noneconomic measures of performance for a portfolio of state administered parks. Utilizing Louisiana state parks, a survey questionnaire was sent to a stratified random sample of 6,299 visitors to 18 state parks in Louisiana with overnight facilities. The total number of usable surveys was 1,499 for a response rate of 23.8%. Economic measures of performance showed that 12 out of the 18 (66.67%) state parks were labeled as stars (high popularity and high profitability), five (27.78%) were labeled as question marks (low popularity and low profitability), and one park was labeled as a plow horse (high popularity and low profitability). Noneconomic measures indicated that Louisiana state parks were higher than national percentages for good value for money ...

Creating a Holistic Methodology to Evaluate the Performance of State Parks

We evaluate lender discrimination during the mortgage default process. A telephone survey was conducted to evaluate the extent of lender discrimination in defaults that lead to foreclosure in New Orleans, Louisiana between 1985-1990. We use these data to estimate the independent effects of race and neighborhood characteristics on the extent of lender assistance or forbearance during the foreclosure process. Our analysis indicates that the proportion of black residents in the neighborhood where the property was foreclosed is a more significant predictor of forbearance than the race of the borrower. This is a foreboding indication of the possibility that recent gains in black home buying may be partially offset by the persistence of residential segregation in U.S. cities. LENDER DISCRIMINATION DURING DEFAULT Controversy continues to define the literature on race discrimination in urban credit markets. For every study which shows that banks make fewer loans in predominantly minority communities than in majority white ones or that banks discriminate against individual minority loan applicants, another study concludes that race discrimination has all but disappeared from housing finance. Some scholars argue that place discrimination has replaced individual discrimination or that only the interaction of an individual’s race and neighborhood characteristics reveals the sources of potentially discriminatory behavior (Ambrose and Capone 1996; Holloway 1998). Another stream of research is criticized for omitting critical variables related to credit worthiness or for using counterfactual methods and logic to address critical issues related to race discrimination. One clear message from this literature is a mandate to continue research on various aspects of discrimination in urban credit markets. This article addresses several important issues in the literature on discrimination in urban credit markets through an investigation of lender forbearance in the mortgage default process. The idea is that a shift in focus away from loan origination and onto the mortgage default process may create some new insight. Is there race discrimination in the mortgage default process? How does credit worthiness compare with other reasons for default? Are individual or neighborhood characteristics more closely linked to discrimination in the default process? The article proceeds with a review of several issues in the literature on race discrimination in housing finance. Results will then be presented from an analysis of census data and data from a survey of forbearance in the default process that was administered to 197 homeowners who were foreclosed on in New Orleans between 1985 and 1990. RACE DISCRIMINATION IN HOUSING FINANCE Race discrimination in residential mortgage lending has been empirically evaluated using a counterfactual model based in the economics of discrimination (Becker 1971; Berkovec et al 1996). The argument made is that if lenders consider blacks and/or other minority applicants a higher default risk, all other things being equal, they will require higher returns on their investment and will impose more stringent underwriting standards. This practice is structured to monetarily compensate for the higher default risk and decrease other known risk factors. If minorities are held to stricter loan origination standards then it follows that minority borrowers should exhibit a lower default and foreclosure rate than non-minority borrowers. The counterfactual argument is then made that if minority borrowers do not experience a lower default and foreclosure rate, then the risk reduction compensatory practice was either not used (i.e., statistical discrimination based on race did not occur), or the stringency of the underwriting standards was not severe enough to compensate for the actual increased risk. While this approach has been severely criticized methodologically for omitting critical variables from the empirical models estimated (Galster 1996; Ross 1996; Yinger 1996), the counterfactual argument itself has not. We will address a logical flaw in the counterfactual argument. We assert, along with Yinger (1996), Ross (1996; 1997), and Ambrose and Capone (1996, 90), that the logical flaw in the counterfactual argument is the unexamined assumption that racial discrimination is not practiced during the mortgage default and foreclosure process. We believe this is a particularly grievous assumption when empirical tests only address whether or not racial discrimination occurred at an earlier point in the residential mortgage process. An examination of potential discrimination in the default process provides insight into several other issues in the literature. One issue concerns the possibility of race related yet unobserved credit unworthiness. Most research on the topic is limited methodologically because the lender provides all information about the mortgage process. For example, Ambrose and Capone’s (1996) useful study of the default process does not resolve the problem because they use lender data to infer that race related credit unworthiness is absent. We start from an alternative theory that cultural barriers between white loan officers and minority borrowers reinforce discriminatory myths that reduce trust and militate against nondiscriminatory loan practices (Holloway 1998, 258-59). To address the issue empirically our survey of foreclosed homeowners contains questions that ask the reason for default, whether borrowers received any lender assistance and/or forbearance, and how they attempted to resolve the default problem (see Appendix A). These data allow us to examine whether discrimination occurred during the default and foreclosure process in New Orleans during the late 1980s. A most contentious issue in the literature is obviously whether discrimination based on race is still practiced in urban credit markets. A related issue concerns the extent to which any discrimination that exists is directed against individuals or against neighborhoods. Discrimination against minority individuals in the mortgage lending process is illegal. However, widespread evidence supports the conclusion that many whites still prefer to live in all white neighborhoods and that many financial professionals place obstacles in the path of minorities who want to move into these areas (Farley et al 1978; Farley et al 1994; Massey and Denton 1993). Steven Holloway (1998) recently reported that being black significantly increases the probability of having a loan application denied in the all white neighborhoods of Columbus, Ohio. However, the uncovering of individual level discrimination in loan origination is complicated by the fact that it is so highly correlated with variables like credit history, wealth, and loan to value ratio that can legitimately be used to allocate credit (Munnell et al 1996). Despite these difficulties, scholars like Geoffrey Tootell (1996, 1078) insist that many lenders remain reluctant to make loans to minorities wherever they apply. Geoffery Tootell (1996) is also among the scholars who believe that the evidence for redlining, the denying of credit to a neighborhood, is weak. The case is made that legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) has been largely successful in monitoring the lending practices of financial institutions so that redlining does not continue. But the issue remains a tricky one. Despite revealed preferences to live in integrated neighborhoods, most black home buyers actually buy into segregated ones (Clark 1991; Immergluck 1998). Continued place stratification is attributed partially to racial myths and stereotypes that condition decisions about lending and residential location (Massey and Denton 1993; Stone 1986). These racial stereotypes then interact with economic concerns about the potential for declining house values in minority neighborhoods to restrict lending in these areas. The economic association of undesirable future outcomes with minority group membership perpetuates discrimination in lending practices to minority dominated neighborhoods. This logic can be extended to investigate the potential for place-based discrimination in the default process. We address the question of whether more forbearance is granted delinquent borrowers in majority white than in majority black neighborhoods. The denial of forbearance to borrowers in predominantly black neighborhoods would be read as discrimination against those neighborhoods. METHODOLOGY The data used in the analysis come from three sources: Civil District Court records; a telephone survey; and the U.S. Census. We first collected data on 4,154 residential mortgage foreclosures in New Orleans between 1985 and 1990 from Civil District Court records. We then conducted a telephone survey of persons whose property in New Orleans was foreclosed between 1985 and 1990. Finally, aggregate data were collected at the block group level for New Orleans from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Census of Population and Housing, Summary tape Files 3-A (U.S. Census Bureau 1982; 1992). The Census data were merged with the survey data and the data on residential mortgage foreclosures. Using the total population of foreclosures in New Orleans from 1985 to 1990, we employed a proportionate stratified sampling technique (see Appendix B) to construct a sampling frame of 2,224 phone numbers of people who had been foreclosed on in that period. The sampling frame was tested and found to be representative of the population of foreclosures. We then selected a proportional random sample of 876 foreclosure cases which was stratified by race and income. The final interview sample contains 197 respondents. The low response rate to the telephone survey is understandable given the fact that any person whose property is foreclosed on has moved from that address. In addition, we were contacting people seven to twelve years after their forecl

/pdf/lender-discrimination-during-default-1ynw9f6gr3.pdf

Bridget M. Bordelon

Papers

Creating a Holistic Methodology to Evaluate the Performance of State Parks

Lender discrimination during default