Élites in Omsk

A French sociologist provides a detailed analysis of the politics, economics, and political elite of Omsk oblast' in Western Siberia. Analysis covers oil politics, reactions to the August 1998 financial crisis, relations with Moscow, the role of entrepreneurs in politics, and the communist and nationalist oppositions. Focus is on the role of the governor and his relations with diverse political forces. The article also examines the gap between formal institutions and actual social and political practices.     

Harvard

Abstract

The following position paper was presented by a five-man delegation from the Harvard CCAS chapter to the embassy of the People's Republic of China in Paris on February 20, 1969. The group included Thomas Engelhardt, Cheryl Goodman, and Jon Livingston, all graduate students at Harvard, Neale Hunter, an Australian who spent 1965–67 teaching English in Shanghai, and Jonathan Mirsky, Director of Dartmouth's East Asia Center, who was unable to go to Paris but helped compose the statement.     

Market segmentation and lender specialization in the primary and secondary mortgage markets

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of market segmentation and lender/purchaser specialization in the primary and secondary mortgage markets. It describes and assesses the 1990 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data, which for the first time provide detailed information on the borrower and neighborhood racial and income characteristics of mortgage loan originations and securitizations in the primary and secondary mortgage markets. Evidence presented in the paper indicates that home purchase loan origination rates for black applicants—and, to a lesser degree, Hispanic applicants—appear to be significantly lower than those of other racial or ethnic groups. Similarly, the HMDA data reveal that home purchase mortgage origination rates in predominantly minority census tracts are significantly lower than those in predominantly white neighborhoods. The HMDA data also indicate a striking reliance of black borrowers on government‐backed forms of mortgage credit.

The paper further reveals that secondary market loan purchase distributions arrayed by borrower and neighborhood characteristics generally reflect those of home mortgage originations. The borrower and locational characteristics of home purchase loans acquired by the Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA) directly reflect that agency's legislated specialization in government‐backed loans, whereas the characteristics of loans acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the most part derive from the borrower and geographic composition of conventional home purchase loan originations. Findings of analyses of HMDA data raise concern regarding the access of minority and low‐income households and neighborhoods to mortgage finance. Those results also raise some question as to whether the federally chartered agencies in the secondary market are adequately promoting the availability of mortgage credit to low‐ and moderate‐income and minority households.