Discriminating Risk: The U.S. Mortgage Lending Industry in the Twentieth Century

The U.S. home mortgage industry first formalized risk criteria in the 1920s and 1930s to determine which applicants should receive funds. Over the past eighty years, these formulae have become more sophisticated. Guy Stuart demonstrates that the very concepts on which lenders base their decisions reflect a set of social and political values about "who deserves what." Stuart examines the fine line between licit choice and illicit discrimination, arguing that lenders, while eradicating blatan...