Mar 31 -- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) is publishing this notice seeking comment on a Generic Information Collection titled “Loan Judgment Bias Experiment” prior to requesting the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) approval of this collection under the Generic Information Collection “Generic Information Collection Plan for Studies of Consumers Using Controlled Trials in Field and Economic Laboratory Settings.”
The proposed research examines whether information about borrower race biases judgments of creditworthiness in the context of a specific financial product: mortgage loan applications. We will ask non-practitioner research participants to evaluate stylized loan applications for Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White non-Hispanic consumers, where information about applicant race is the only characteristic that varies. We will also ask whether any impact of race information depends on the mode of information provision (e.g., explicit race/ethnicity information vs. implicit from borrower name or other indirect signal). A maximum of 3,600 participants will be recruited from the panel maintained by CloudResearch to complete the Loan Judgment Bias Experiment. The Bureau will collect information on judgments about the riskiness of hypothetical applications with varying characteristics and information related to the task including an assessment of the respondent's experience completing the task. The Bureau will not receive any personal identifiable information (PII).
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-06751
