Recent research has linked climate change and socioeconomic inequality (see here, here, and here). But what are the effects of climate change on small businesses, particularly those owned by people of color, which tend to be more resource-constrained and less resilient? In a series of two posts, we use the Federal Reserve’s Small Business Credit Survey (SBCS) to document small businesses’ experiences with natural disasters and how these experiences differ based on the race and ethnicity o...| Liberty Street Economics
An often-overlooked aspect of flood-plain mapping is the fact that these maps designate stark boundaries, with households falling either inside or outside of areas designated as “flood zones.” Households inside flood zones must insure themselves against the possibility of disasters. However, costly insurance may have pushed lower-income households out of areas officially designated a flood risk and into physically adjacent areas. While not designated an official flood risk, Federal Emerge...| Liberty Street Economics
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was designed to reduce household and lender flood-risk exposure and “encourage lending.” In this post, which is based on our related study, we show that in certain situations the program actually limits access to credit, particularly for low-income borrowers—an unintended consequence of this well-intentioned program.| Liberty Street Economics
João A. C. Santos is a financial research advisor in Financial Intermediation. His research interests include financial systems design, financial intermediation, banking regulation and corporate finance. His articles have been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics, European Economic Review, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, among other journals.| www.newyorkfed.org
Fields of interest| www.newyorkfed.org