volume of subprime lending is not certain." A study by the economists, Agarwal, Benmelich, and Bergman, found that banks undergoing CRA-related regulatory exams took additional mortgage lending risk. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission formed by the US Congress in 2009 to investigate the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, concluded "the CRA was not a significant factor in subprime lending or the crisis". Ben Bernanke, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, wrote that experience and research contradict "the charge that CRA was at the root of, or otherwise contributed in any substantive way to, the current mortgage difficulties." Government economists and officials, including Janet Yellen, then President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan, and Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner, also hold that the CRA did not significantly contribute to the subprime crisis. According to Yellen, former Chair of the Federal Reserve, independent mortgage companies made risky "higher-priced" loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the "higher-priced" loans that have contributed to the current crisis. During a 2008 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the financial crisis, including in relation to the Community Reinvestment Act, when asked if the CRA provided the "fuel" for increasing subprime loans, former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines said it might have been a catalyst encouraging bad behavior, but it was difficult to know. Raines also cited information that only a small percentage of risky loans originated as a result of the CRA. In 2015, Federal Reserve Board economists Neil Bhutta and Daniel Ringo published a summary of available studies on the issue. They concluded that "CRA-related loans were a small fraction of the subprime market during the mortgage boom", and hence it was not a significant contributor to the financial crisis. See also Fannie Mae Freddie Mac Federal Housing Administration Housing and Community Development Act of 1987 Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 References Notes External links Public Law 95-128, 95th Congress, H.R. 6655: Housing and Community Development Act of 1977 [Community Reinvestment Act] Revisiting the CRA: Perspectives & Policy Discussion on the Community Reinvestment Act, a joint publication by the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and San Francisco, Federal Reserve System. Researchers,