ABSTRACT
This chapter examines mortgage lending patterns across low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in Philadelphia from 1990 to 1991. It explains the geographic distribution of mortgage loan applications and by analyzing approval and denial patterns, in addition to looking at mortgage origination activity. The chapter provides a brief description of the Delaware Valley Mortgage Plan (DVMP) by development of the model on which the empirical specifications are based, as well as a description of the data and empirical procedure. The chapter presents a logit analysis of the disposition of loan applications and explores patterns of application and origination activity. DVMP is a community reinvestment program that was initiated in 1977 by a coalition of banks as a result of discussions between bankers and community leaders on how to increase homeownership in disadvantaged sections of Philadelphia. Several non-DVMP institutions were dropped from the sample because they failed to identify the census tract locations of a substantial proportion of their loans in Philadelphia.
