American Predatory Lending and the Global Financial Crisis (2020-2021)

Building on the work of the 2019-2020 project team, this team used a multi-method and interdisciplinary approach to examine the policy and market dynamics in the run-up to the financial crisis in order to explain the divergent responses among federal and state/local policymakers as well as the implications for preventing the next financial crisis.

Each of the 25 undergraduate and graduate students and faculty worked on multiple projects throughout the year. The continued focus on interdisciplinary research allowed for students to produce engaging, accessible analyses on four separate sub-teams.

The Oral History subteam conducted 30 new interviews over the course of the year. The interviews expanded the geographic range of the project to Ohio, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Florida. The team also collected stories from executives at institutions in the private sector, such as Washington Mutual, and federal and state regulators as well as consumer advocates.
The Policy Analysis subteam mapped out legislative timelines for the United States, North Carolina, and Massachusetts and wrote policy memos on mortgage enforcement actions in Florida and Massachusetts. The memos chronicled the development of rules and regulations as well as any changes leading up to, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis.
The Data Analysis subteam produced word clouds using common words and phrases from the oral history interviews conducted by the team. They color-coded the words by stakeholder, which were policymakers, consumer advocates and banking executives, revealing patterns that differed drastically from each other. This team also dove into an analysis of the Arizona mortgage market in conjunction with continued analysis of other key states like North Carolina.
The Business Analysis subteam analyzed two case studies over the semester: Colonial Bancgroup and Long Beach. The case studies provided greater insight into the product line throughout the lead-up to the financial crisis. In addition, the team wrote four memos on the evolution of the mortgage market, which analyzed how underwriting, different entities, subprime products and regulators changed before, during and after the crisis.

Timing

Fall 2020 – Spring 2021

Team Outputs

Team website

Documenting the Financial Crisis (2021 Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Virtual Showcase)

Documenting Oral Histories and Business, Data and Policy Analysis on the American Predatory Lending and the Global Financial Crisis (poster by Colins Abanda, McKenna Baker, Arjun Bakshi, Carolyn Chen, Michael Dymond, Danielle Engliman, Jett Hollister, Esther Hong, Malena Lopez-Sotelo, Sean Nguyen, Braelyn Parkman, Maria Paz Rios, Cameron Polo, Raghav Rasal, Patrick Rochelle, Jacob Satisky, Sebastian Soriano Perez, Neha Vangipurapu, Olivia Wivestead, Jessie Xu, Sana Pashankar, Sarah Zhao, Charlie Zong, Katie Kaufman and Jacob Argue (runner up, Bass Connections Poster Competition, Judges’ Selection))