Searching for Age and Gender Discrimination in Mortgage Lending

by Jason Dietrich and Hannes Johannsson

This paper tests for the presence of age and gender discrimination in the loan underwriting process. We modify the tools used during the past exams to test for racial discrimination and apply them here to test for the presence of disparate treatment on the basis of age and gender. Using HMDA data along with data from 18 fair lending exams recently conducted by the OCC, between 1996 - 2001, we find no evidence of systematic discrimination on the basis of age or gender. Further, the tools used and tested for in this analysis are now readily available for use in future fair lending exams.

Any whole or partial reproduction of material in this paper should include the following citation: Jason Dietrich and Hannes Johannsson, "Searching for Age and Gender Discrimination in Mortgage Lending," Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Economics Working Paper 2005-2, August 2005.

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