Seeds of Growth
Sustainable Community Development: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why

A Federal Reserve System Community Affairs Research Conference
Held in Washington, D.C.
March 27-28, 2003

This Web site contains the papers from a conference organized by the Community Affairs Officers of the Federal Reserve System. Papers included in the Web site are to be considered working papers. They are reproduced here to make them available to scholars and practitioners with a serious interest in the topics presented. Many of the papers are in preliminary form and will be submitted for publication elsewhere. The works here should be cited as working papers and considered preliminary drafts of any subsequent publication. Although all papers have been screened for relevance to the subject matter of the conference, they have not been subjected to a rigorous refereeing process nor edited for form or content by the Federal Reserve.

Summary (PDF,245KB)

Opening Remarks (PDF,14KB)
William Poole
President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Welcoming Address
Michael H. Moskow
President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Keynote Address
Alan Greenspan
Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6

Session One: Counseling and Intervention
A Little Knowledge Is a Good Thing: Empirical Evidence of the Effectiveness of Pre-Purchase Homeownership Counseling (PDF,467KB)
Abdighani Hirad and Peter M. Zorn, Freddie Mac, McLean, VA

The Impact of Credit Counseling on Subsequent Borrower Credit Usage and Payment Behavior (PDF,305KB)
Michael E. Staten and Gregory Elliehausen, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
E. Christopher Lundquist, Lundquist Consulting, Inc., Washington, D.C.

Financial Education and Retirement Savings (PDF,242KB)
Robert L. Clark, Ann McDermed, and Kshama Sawant, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Madeleine B. d'Ambrosio, TIAA-CREF Institute, New York, NY

Patterns of Financial Behaviors: Implications for Community Educators and Policymakers (PDF, 1,759KB)
Jeanne M. Hogarth and Marianne A. Hilgert, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington, D.C.
Sondra G. Berverly, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS