The thirty-five day, partial Federal shutdown caused 800,000 employees to miss paychecks. Faculty Director of CFS and Associate Professor of Public Affairs and Consumer Science, J. Michael Collins, provided insight into what this means for many of the workers effected and how this highlights the issues of poverty, financial insecurity, and fragility of many American’s financial lives.
“A Safety Net That Has A Frayed Bottom Makes People Feel More Financially Vulnerable Than They Already Are,” J. Michael Collins
CFS Affiliate and Professor at the WI School of Business, Anita Mukherjee, along with her co-authors, Hessam Bavafa and Junhao Liu, published their article in the Journal of Consumer Affairs, which examines the subject of improving financial and health literacy in reducing economic vulnerability in older age. This paper delves into the question of how and by what means individuals accumulate these types of human capital by looking at the impact of online search activities on the levels of financial and health literacy.
CFS Research Fellow and Professor of Economics at the University of Connecticut, Stephen Ross, along with his co-authors Weiran Huang of the Department of Finance in NYC and Ashlyn Nelson from Indiana University Bloomington, have released a working paper and policy brief that examine the spillover effects of foreclosure within broad neighborhoods.
Jirs Meuris, Assistant Professor in the Management and Human Resources Department at Wisconsin School of Business, provides expertise based on his extensive research on financial stress and worker productivity. Meuris discussed his studies, and as well as the broader organizational effects, showing that the more worried employees were about their personal finances, the more accident- and error-prone they were in their work. Meuris was interviewed on NPR’s Marketplace, The Atlantic, and Wiscosnin Public Radio. Links to media coverage:
Stephen Ross, Professor of Economics, University of Connecticut
In their recently published Housing Policy Debate article, co-authors Stephen Ross and Marsha Courchane present an overview of the research on discrimination in mortgage underwriting and pricing, the experiences of minority borrowers both prior to and during the financial crisis, and federal efforts to mitigate foreclosures during the crisis. They discuss the history of legal cases alleging disparate treatment of minority borrowers, and recent cases alleging disparate impact in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Inclusive Communities decision. Using these discussions as a background, Ross and Courchane examine and discuss mortgage regulations issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau following the financial crisis, describe recent developments in the FinTech industry and explore the implications for fair lending policy and minority borrowers more generally. The authors draw conclusions and make recommendations for improving the mortgage market outcomes of minority borrowers and increasing minority borrowers’ access to credit.
