July 2026

New Paper in Nature: New Deal mortgage programs benefited white borrowers disproportionately

Our paper with Kate Thomas, Thomas Storrs, and Jacob Faber came out in Nature. Using newly digitized archival records from FHA and VA mortgage programs, we show just how lopsidedly these New Deal-era programs channeled homeownership and wealth toward white borrowers.

"New-deal mortgage programmes benefited white borrowers disproportionately" was published in Nature in July 2026. Coauthored with Kate Thomas (NYU), Thomas Storrs (University of Virginia), and Jacob Faber (NYU), the paper draws on newly digitized archival materials from the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration — programs that have been relatively understudied compared to the Home Owners' Loan Corporation's redlining maps — to quantify how disproportionately their loan guarantees flowed to white borrowers. The findings sharpen the empirical case for how mid-twentieth-century federal housing policy shaped the contemporary racial wealth gap.