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Journal Article
Labor, Race, and COVID-19
The pandemic altered long-standing racial differences in how workers experience the labor market
Working Paper
Screening on Loan Terms: Evidence from Maturity Choice in Consumer Credit
We exploit a natural experiment in the largest online consumer lending platform to provide the first evidence that loan terms, in particular maturity choice, can be used to screen borrowers based on their private information. We compare two groups of observationally equivalent borrowers who took identical unsecured 36-month loans; for only one of the groups, a 60-month loan was also available. When a long-maturity option is available, fewer borrowers take the short-term loan, and those who do default less. Additional findings suggest borrowers self-select on private information about their ...
Journal Article
Kitchen Conversations: How Households Make Economic Choices
Economists have studied decision-making for centuries, but how do households, as opposed to individuals, make decisions? The future of personal finance may rest on the answers.
Working Paper
Time-Consistent Individuals, Time-Inconsistent Households
I present a model of consumption and savings for a multi-person household in which members are imperfectly altruistic, derive utility from both private and shared public goods, and share wealth. I show that, despite having standard exponential time preferences, the household is time-inconsistent: members save too little and overspend on private consumption goods. The household remains time-inconsistent even when members save separately, because the possibility of voluntary transfers or joint contribution to the public good preserves the dynamic commons problem. The household will choose to ...
Journal Article
Credit Scores and Rising Credit Card Delinquencies
COVID disrupted credit scores. Did that have something to do with the rise in card delinquencies?