Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 24.
(refine search)
Discussion Paper
Informal Homeownership Issues: Tracking Contract for Deed Sales in the Southeast
Since the Great Recession, homeownership rates have dropped and the wealth divide has widened for low-income and racial and ethnic minority households. Homeownership is a significant contributor to household balance sheets and generator of household wealth, particularly for these populations. {{p}} A contract for deed is a seller-financed real estate contract consisting of installment payments. For households that desire the financial and physical security of owning a home, contracts for deed may provide an inexpensive option. However, risks may exist. Unlike the recipient of a mortgage, the ...
Discussion Paper
Declines in Low-Cost Rented Housing Units in Eight Large Southeastern Cities
From the last quarter of 2012 to the last quarter of 2015, median rents rose 23.4 percent in the South, according to the Census Bureau. Accordingly, an increasing number of households in the South are cost-burdened, which is defined as a household spending more than 30 percent of its income on housing. A growing number of households spend over 50 percent of their income on rent, making them severely cost-burdened. The percentage of such severely cost-burdened households with incomes below $35,000 reached 80 percent in 2014 in eight central cities in the Southeast (Atlanta, Birmingham, ...
Discussion Paper
Locally owned: Do local business ownership and size matter for local economic well-being?
The concept of ?economic gardening??supporting locally owned businesses over nonlocally owned businesses and small businesses over large ones?has gained traction as a means of economic development since the 1980s. However, there is no definitive evidence for or against this pro-local business view. Therefore, I am using a rich U.S. county-level data set to obtain a statistical characterization of the relationship between local-based entrepreneurship and county economic performance for the period 2000?2009. I investigate the importance of the size of locally based businesses relative to all ...
Discussion Paper
The financing experiences of nonemployer firms: evidence from the 2014 joint small business credit survey
Businesses without employees?or nonemployer firms?make up the majority of small businesses in the United States, but little is known about their financial lives, including their business financing needs and experiences. In this paper, we discuss findings from data on nonemployer firms in the 2014 Joint Small Business Credit Survey, a new annual survey by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia. Our results indicate that nonemployers use financing less than employers do. They hold less debt and apply for financing at lower rates, even when controlling for ...
Discussion Paper
Social ties, space, and resilience: Literature review of community resilience to disasters and constituent social and built environment factors
Communities have faced a variety of crises in recent decades, including more frequent and severe natural disasters. As applied to disasters, resilience entails the ability of a community to rebound following a hurricane, earthquake, or other disturbance. Given the importance of resilience in promoting an effective recovery, the factors that contribute to community resilience are of great interest to scholars and practitioners in many fields. Recent work has examined, for example, socioeconomic indicators that contribute to greater social vulnerability and organizational structures that ...
Discussion Paper
Benefits Cliffs and the Financial Incentives for Career Advancement: A Case Study of the Health Care Services Career Pathway
Benefits cliffs, which occur when earnings gains are offset by the loss of public benefits, have long been recognized to create financial disincentives for low-income individuals to earn more income. In this paper, the authors develop a new methodology to study benefits cliffs in the context of career advancement. The authors illustrate the change in net financial resources for an individual pursuing the health care services career pathway from certified nursing assistant (CNA) to licensed practical nurse (LPN) to registered nurse (RN). Accounting for increases in taxes and the loss of public ...
Discussion Paper
How Do Firms Respond to Hiring Difficulties? Evidence from the Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey
Using data from the Federal Reserve Banks' 2017 Small Business Credit Survey (SBCS), this paper investigates the various ways in which different types of firms with less than 500 employees experience and address hiring difficulties, including when they decide to increase compensation. {{p}} The authors find significant variation in hiring difficulties by type of firm, and a firm's response appears to depend on the nature of the problem. The most common response is to increase compensation, with firms that experience competition from other employers being the most likely to do so. Other common ...
Discussion Paper
Negative equity in the Sixth Federal Reserve District
Using Zillow's zip code level Negative Equity Report for the second quarter of 2014 and 2015, I map, describe, and analyze the characteristics of neighborhoods that have persistent negative equity in the Sixth Federal Reserve District, comprised of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Persistent negative equity, when a house is worth less than outstanding mortgage debt, is high in the Sixth District and concentrated in urban areas. In a series of regressions, I evaluate the correlation of income, commute times, unemployment, housing stock quality, ...
Discussion Paper
Anchor Institution Strategies in the Southeast: Working with Hospitals and Universities to Support Inclusive Growth
Engaging universities and hospitals to address economic disparities—often referred to as anchor institution strategies—has been understudied in the Southeast. The author examines efforts to launch anchor institution strategies in the Southeast. First, the author reviews the anchor institution concept in economic development, noting how the strategy has evolved from single institutions focusing on a set of neighborhoods to expanding to multi-institution collaboratives that attempt to tackle economic inequalities at a city or regional level. Second, the author offers case studies of New ...
Discussion Paper
What Works at Scale? A Framework to Scale Up Workforce Development Programs
Workforce development policymakers have access to a growing catalog of training programs evaluated with rigorous randomized controlled trials. This evidence base identifies programs that work in specific geographic and temporal contexts but may not necessarily work in other contexts or at a scale sufficient to meet regional workforce needs. The author examines a sample of recent randomized controlled trials of workforce development programs and reports to what extent this body of evidence informs policymakers about what works at scale. The author finds that most programs are implemented at a ...