A new study on minority lending in seven cities found Boston has the greatest disparity of prime lending between white neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color.

Based on data from 2006 through 2008, the study showed lenders pulled back on mortgages across all neighborhoods in each city. But prime purchase and refinance loans have dropped much farther in black and Latino neighborhoods. In Boston, lending dropped 16.3 percent in white neighborhoods, but 55.8 percent in communities of color.

On average, prime lending dropped by 28.4 percent across all seven cities’ white neighborhoods, but by 60.3 percent in black and Latino neighborhoods.

The study, which included the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance and was released this month, divided neighborhoods into two racial categories: Those with more than 80 percent residents of color versus those with less than 10 percent residents of color. The prime data source was the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Loan Application Register.

The study "Paying More for the American Dream IV" was one in a series charting a number of trends, including the increased likelihood that black and Latino borrowers would be targeted for higher-cost home purchase loans and high-risk loans, as well as greater levels of foreclosures.

The latest installment also examined the top four bank holding companies, finding that all of them – Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, shifted mortgage lending to predominantly white communities and away from communities of color. On average, the top four increased prime refinance lending in white neighborhoods by 32 percent, but deceased lending by 33 percent elsewhere.

The study’s joint contributors urged lawmakers to create a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency, expand the Community Reinvestment Act, increase requirements for HMDA data, require banks to keep people in their homes and fund neighborhood revitalization.