Borrow

We evaluate laws designed to protect borrowers from foreclosure. We find that these laws delay but do not prevent foreclosures. We first compare states that require lenders to seek judicial permission to foreclose with states that do not. Borrowers in judicial states are no more likely to cure and no more likely to renegotiate their loans, but the delays lead to a build-up in these states of persistently delinquent borrowers, the vast majority of whom eventually lose their homes. We next analyze a "right-to-cure" law instituted in Massachusetts on May 1, 2008.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury and U.S. Department of Agriculture convened the National Research Symposium on Financial Literacy and Education on October 6-7, 2008 in Washington, DC. Twenty-nine experts from the fields of behavioral and consumer economics, financial risk assessment and financial education evaluation were invited to summarize existing research findings, identify gaps in the literature, and define and prioritize questions for future analysis.

This article presents best practices and lessons learnt from on the experiences of the National Endowment for Financial Education® (NEFE), a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan and noncommercial foundation committed to increas- ing access to financial education and to empowering in- dividuals to make positive and sound financial decision.

This article provides a plain-language description of behavioral economics and the role of common biases in financial decisionmaking, and reviews ways in which the findings of behavioral economics can help structure financial education and public policy.

This article provides a brief overview of the field of financial education and explores some of the challenges and potential solutions. The author describes developments in the contemporary financial education movement since the 1990s and the background economic changes that stimulated its growth; reviews currently available financial education initiatives for youth and adults and discusses the evidence about its effectiveness as well as broader challenges for the field. The article concludes by highlighting both general and specific examples of efforts to move the field forward.

This descriptive analysis examines the importance of personal financing sources, especially mortgages secured by residential property, to small businesses from 1998 through 2007. About 80 percent of the total debt owned by small business-owning house-holds is held in mortgages and installment loans. The likelihood of holding a residential mortgage increased from 64.7 percent in 1998 to over 73 percent in 2007, and the share of total debt held in residential mortgages increased from 67.3 percent in 1998 to 70.6 percent in 2007 for small business-owning households.

The Community Development Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) commissioned this study to explore the feasibility of passing a financial education mandate in California. Specifically, we sought to understand the key barriers related to passing a mandate in California and to identify strategies to implement financial education in the current environment, despite the absence of a state mandate.

The State of Minnesota’s Emerging Markets Homeownership Initiative (EMHI) seeks to boost homeownership rates among Minnesota’s “emerging markets,” defined as households of color, non-English speaking households, and households in which English is a second language. Many of the implementation strategies in the EMHI Business Plan address general barriers to homeownership and should increase the number of emerging market households that become first-time homeowners. EMHI doesn’t stop there, however.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Take Charge America Institute at the University of Arizona, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis invited a small group of researchers and practitioners to discuss how to improve the evaluation and metrics of youth financial education programs. The meeting focused specifically on youth — which we defined as individuals under the age of 25 – in an effort to distinguish this effort from others that have discussed financial education research more broadly.

This article reviews research on the effectiveness of general financial literacy training to draw implications for literacy training related to predatory lending. The article concludes that training offered by high schools and workplaces is associated with improved financial knowledge and behavior, especially for low-income or less-educated recipients. Although evidence on homeowner education and counseling is less clear cut, the article concludes that financial literacy training has the potential to curb predatory lending.