Debby Lindsey-Taliefero, PhD
Debby Lindsey-Taliefero is a Professor of Business Economics in the Department of Finance at Howard University. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Howard University in 1983. She has the distinction of being the first African-American female to obtain a doctorate in Economics at Howard University. Her research efforts have focused primarily on residential mortgage finance and its impacts on vulnerable communities. Her research spans across many topics, including mortgage foreclosures, delinquencies, regulatory compliance, fair lending, and financial literacy. Dr. Lindsey-Taliefero has published in the Journal of Studies in Economics and Finance, Journal of Business & Economics Research, Journal of the Academy of Economics and Finance, Journal of Finance Case Research, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Journal of Research on Minority Affairs, International Advances in Economic Research, Mortgage Banking Magazine, CRA Bulletin, as well as numerous conference proceedings. She currently serves as Emeritus Advisor of the Golden Key International Honour Society, Oversight Advice of the Student Financial Literacy Ambassador Program, and Research Associate for the Center of Race and Wealth. Debby has earned many awards, including the Department of Distinguished Alumni, Honorary Member of Beta Gamma Sigma, and Teacher of the Year.
Debby has served as Project Manager for Freddie Mac’s CreditSmart Curriculum for Howard University. The CreditSmart project sheds light on minority group credit issues. It has produced reports on credit behavior, focus groups, a national survey analyzing African American credit behavior, and a consumer credit education curriculum at Howard University. CreditSmart has matured into a national consumer credit education curriculum used across the United States and is available in five different languages, including English, Spanish (CreditSmart Español), plus Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese (CreditSmart Asian).
Through the CreditSmart curriculum, other initiatives developed. Debby prepared the congressional testimony before the U.S. Senate Hearing on “The State of Financial Literacy and Education in America.” for then-President of Howard University, H. Patrick Swygert. The CreditSmart project was cited, and Debby was recognized in the official U.S. Senate records as the financial literacy expert from Howard University. Another project related to CreditSmart was two research surveys, (1) Online Student Credit Habits and Behavior Survey and (2) the Howard University Financial Literacy Survey and University-Financial Literacy Survey. The former survey conducted yearly since 2000, was designed to examine attitudes, perceptions, and experiences that influenced college students’ credit behavior. The latter survey deployed in 2010 was modeled after the Jump$tart survey. It was designed to measure students’ financial knowledge. Her credit survey research has been cited internationally and has provided a foundation for lifelong financial literacy learning for students and many community adults.
Dr. Lindsey-Taliefero served as an expert witness, in a federal lawsuit in Tennessee on behalf of African-American plaintiffs alleging discrimination in automobile financing. She developed a theoretical framework in automobile-financing to evaluate disparate treatment in financing automobiles and estimated racial differences in auto-financial charge markups. These reports led to class action lawsuits against Nissan Motors Acceptance Corporation (NMAC) and General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC). Debby’s research was cited on the nationally televised program ABC 20/20, as well as in the New York Times, Washington Post, and in the Department of Justice’s Amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs in the auto finance litigation. NMAC and GMAC settled out of court. Debby’s research made a difference in the lives of many and set the stage for other cases and research into fair lending. It has had a major impact on the national auto-financing policy. The industry was forced to radically change its practices, thereby saving the minority car-buying public millions, even billions of dollars in excess finance charges.
In the area of fair-lending, Debby has partnered with ComplianceTech. This company provides specialized lending intelligence services to financial institutions nationwide. ComplianceTech is renowned for its expertise in formulating fair lending benchmarks, CRA best-practices, and fair lending risk analysis. This partnership has allowed Debby to produce numerous fair-lending reports, presentations, and articles in mortgage finance, controlling for disparate impact by race, gender, ethnicity, and age.
Before joining the faculty at Howard University, Debby worked as an Economist at Analytic Services, Inc. (Anser), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Urban League, and the Washington Bureau of the NAACP.
Why did you become a member of the International Atlantic Economic Society?
A colleague encouraged me to present a paper at the IAES Conference held many years ago. Since then, I have been affiliated with IAES and have presented at many conferences, including Montreal, Canada, Charleston, SC, Chicago, IL, Philaphelia, PA, New York, NY, Boston, MA, Washinton, DC, and others that I can’t remember. In 2001, I published a research note with S. Muhammad on The Economic Impact of Entrepreneurship Training in Rural America, International Advances in Economic Research, 7(3), 369. Through the years, I have continued my relationship with the Society because it keeps me up-to-date, increases my knowledge, and has been value-added to my career.
What types of projects/research are you currently working on, and what inspired/motivated you to pursue these interests?
I am currently working on a study that explores lending disparities in the granting of reverse mortgages. Specifically, Lynne Kelly (co-author) and I are examining whether there were any disparities in the decision to deny or approve reverse mortgages related to applicants’ demographics, loan features, and underwriting attributes. We used a quantitative research design and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data from 2018 and 2019 for reverse mortgages to conduct the analysis. A set of procedures are applied to implement the analysis, including crosstabulation, logistic regression, and variance analysis. Early results found reverse mortgage disparities by race, loan features, and interest rates, primarily disenfranchised black and Hispanic applicants. The results identified that the odds of denial for an FHA reverse-mortgage increase by 121%, 59%, and 34% when the applicants were black, Hispanic, and Asian, respectively, versus white non-Hispanic applicants. After we incorporate changes, our plan is to submit the research for publication. This area of research is motivated and inspired by equal protection under the law. All mortgage applicants should be treated fairly, regardless of race, gender, or age.
At present, I serve as an Oversight Professor of the Financial Literacy Ambassador Progam sponsored by the Society for Financial Education and Professional Development (SFEPD). This is a national program designed to train students in financial literacy to teach their peers. Students conduct virtual workshops on money management, credit, and investments and attend an annual Financial Literacy Leadership Conference. This initiative speaks directly to closing the racial wealth gap. Arming future generations with financial knowledge and awareness of self-behavioral modification can improve African Americans’ financial well-being.
What advice would you give to someone who is considering entering your line of work/field of study?
The field of fair lending is an exciting area with a purpose. With the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act and the HMDA data expansion, new doors have opened. The expanded HMDA data fields have created deeper pathways to analyzing lending disparities and conducting fair-lending analyses. The expanded public data provides profound implications for mortgage lenders’ regulatory, litigation, public policy, and reputation risk exposure. The new data will allow regulatory agencies and researchers to search more broadly for fair lending and other compliance risks and target institutions more precisely for examination. It will also provide rich data mining opportunities for private litigants, advocacy groups, researchers, and policy-makers. Managing those risks is going to require some planning and analysis. Anyone interested in fair-lending should arm themselves with a sound understanding of statistics, data analytics, mortgage application/decision process, and credit/housing discrimination laws. Fair-lending employment opportunities are available in the private sector at banks, mortgage companies, non-profit organizations, and academia.
Going forward, what other projects/research are you looking to or hoping to pursue?
Given this new-fangled data-rich environment, financial institutions will have to re-think their data analytics. Mortgage lenders will need to be more diligent than ever in evaluating themselves for fair lending and reputation risk. Lenders will have to continue monitoring underwriting, pricing, and redlining risk. Lenders will need to also be creative and think about the potential new risk indicators that could be mined from the new HMDA data fields and monitor those additional risks. If there are prohibited basis disparities regarding the new HMDA data fields, it will be essential to evaluate the root causes of those disparities and whether they are explainable in non-discriminatory terms. As a result, lenders will need to perform more extensive analysis to understand their processes and policies that underlie the data and evaluating whether sufficient controls are in place to limit fair lending risk.
My future research is to examine key-new HMDA data fields to explore potential new fair lending risk indicators. Some of the risk indicators will include pricing or fee differences, lenders credits, subcomponents of race and ethnicity, distribution of home equity, reverse mortgages, and product steering.
What’s your favorite hobby?
I enjoy historical and period movies and documentaries. I particularly appreciate accurately portrayed military firms. I also love to decorate and create new stuff from the old by painting or sewing. I am a fact-checker on almost everything, which I find is an enjoyable way of learning.