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Jel Classification:D14 

Working Paper
For Better and for Worse? Effects of Access to High-Cost Consumer Credit

I provide empirical evidence that the effect of high-cost credit access on household material well-being depends on if a household is experiencing temporary financial distress. Using detailed data on household consumption and location, as well as geographic variation in access to high cost payday loans over time, I find that payday credit access improves wellbeing for households in distress by helping them smooth consumption. In periods of temporary financial distress?after extreme weather events like hurricanes and blizzards?I find that payday loan access mitigates declines in spending on ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2016-056

Discussion Paper
Historically Low Delinquency Rates Coming to an End

Total household debt increased by $312 billion during the second quarter of 2022, and balances are now more than $2 trillion higher than they were in the fourth quarter of 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic recession, according to the Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. All debt types saw sizable increases, with the exception of student loans. Mortgage balances were the biggest driver of the overall increase, climbing $207 billion since the first quarter of 2022. Credit card balances saw a $46 billion increase since the ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20220802

Report
The 2010 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice: Summary Results

In 2010, the number of consumer payments increased nearly 9 percent from 2009 as economic activity began to rebound from the financial crisis and recession. Cash payments by consumers, which had increased sharply in 2009, did not fall back but rather grew another 3 percent in 2010. However, the share of cash payments, the dollar amount of cash withdrawals, and cash holdings by consumers decreased moderately in 2010. Credit card payments by consumers increased 15 percent, reversing more than half the 2009 decline, and the steady trend decline in paper check payments by consumers continued. ...
Consumer Payments Research Data Reports , Paper 2013-02

Working Paper
Merchant steering of consumer payment choice: evidence from a 2012 Diary survey

This paper seeks to discover whether U.S. merchants are using their recently granted freedom to offer price discounts and other incentives to steer customers to pay with methods that are less costly to merchants. Using evidence of merchant steering based on the 2012 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, we find that only a very small fraction of transactions received a cash or debit card discount, and even fewer were subjected to a credit card surcharge. Transactions at gasoline stations were more likely to receive either cash discounts or credit card surcharges than transactions in other ...
Working Papers , Paper 14-1

Discussion Paper
Do People View Housing as a Good Investment and Why?

Housing represents the largest asset owned by most households and is a major means of wealth accumulation, particularly for the middle class. Yet there is limited understanding of how households view housing as an investment relative to financial assets, in part because of their differences beyond the usual risk and return trade-off. Housing offers households an accessible source of leverage and a commitment device for saving through an amortization schedule. For an owner-occupied residence, it also provides stability and hedges for rising housing costs. On the other hand, housing is much ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20210405b

Report
Student Debt and Default: The Role of For-Profit Colleges

For-profit providers have become an important fixture of U.S. higher education markets. Students who attend for-profit institutions take on more educational debt and are more likely to default on their student loans than those attending similarly selective public schools. Because for-profits tend to serve students from more disadvantaged backgrounds, it is important to isolate the causal effect of for-profit enrollment on student debt and repayment outcomes as well as the educational and labor market mechanisms that drive any such effects. We approach this problem using a novel instrument ...
Staff Reports , Paper 811

Working Paper
Does getting a mortgage affect credit card use?

Buying a house changes a household?s balance sheet by simultaneously reducing liquidity and introducing mortgage payments, which may leave the household more exposed to other shocks. We find that this change affects credit card use in two ways: A debt effect increases credit card spending, while a credit effect leads to higher credit limits. In the short run, a new mortgage acquisition has a robust and statistically significant positive effect on credit card utilization ? the fraction of a consumer?s credit card limit that is used ? of approximately 11 percentage points. Before the 2008 ...
Working Papers , Paper 19-8

Discussion Paper
A tale of two vintages: credit limit management before and after the CARD act and Great Recession

This paper uses tradeline-level credit card data to examine initial credit limits and early credit limit increases before and after the Great Recession and implementation of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009 (the CARD Act). I compare two vintages of credit card accounts, those opened in 2005 and 2011; I also follow each vintage for more than two years after the account opening. In general, I find that significantly less credit was extended to approved credit card applicants in 2011 than in 2005. Accounts in the 2011 vintage started out with lower ...
Consumer Finance Institute discussion papers , Paper 15-1

Discussion Paper
Meet People Where They Are: Building Formal Credit Using Informal Financial Traditions

The Consumer Finance Institute hosted a workshop in February 2019 featuring Jos Quionez, chief executive officer, and Elena Fairley, programs director, of Mission Asset Fund (MAF) to discuss MAF?s approach to helping its clients improve access to mainstream financial markets. MAF?s signature program, Lending Circles, adapts a traditional community-based financial tool known as a rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA) to help establish or expand credit reports for participants who may not be able to do so through traditional means. Lending Circles have served more than 10,000 clients ...
Consumer Finance Institute discussion papers , Paper 19-3

Discussion Paper
Younger Borrowers Are Struggling with Credit Card and Auto Loan Payments

Total debt balances grew by $394 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, the largest nominal quarterly increase in twenty years, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. Mortgage balances, the largest form of household debt, drove the increase with a gain of $254 billion, while credit card balances saw a $61 billion increase—the largest observed in the history of our data, which goes back to 1999.
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20230216

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