Search Results
Working Paper
Risk-based pricing of interest rates in household loan markets
Focusing on observable default risk's role in loan terms and the subsequent consequences for household behavior, this paper shows that lenders increasingly used risk-based pricing of interest rates in consumer loan markets during the mid-1990s. It tests three resulting predictions. First, the premium paid per unit of risk should have increased over this period. Second, debt levels should react accordingly. Third, fewer high-risk households should be denied credit, further contributing to the interest rate spread between the highest- and lowest-risk borrowers. For those obtaining loans, the ...
Working Paper
Household borrowing after personal bankruptcy
A large literature has examined factors leading to filing for personal bankruptcy, but little is known about household borrowing after bankruptcy. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we find that relative to comparable nonfilers, bankruptcy filers generally have more limited access to unsecured credit but borrow more secured debt post bankruptcy, and they pay higher interest rates on all types of debt. We also find that credit access and borrowing costs improve as more time passed since filing. However, filers experience renewed debt payment difficulties and accumulate less ...
Conference Paper
Making regulation work for consumers and banks
Conference Paper
SMEs and bank lending relationships: the impact of mergers
This paper studies the impact of bank mergers on firm-bank lending relationships using information from individual loan contracts in Belgium. We analyze the effects of bank mergers on the probability of borrowers maintaining their lending relationships and on their ability to continue tapping bank credit. The Belgian financial environment reflects a number of interesting features: high banking sector concentration; ?in-market? mergers with large target banks; importance of large banks in providing external finance to SMEs; and low numbers of bank lending relationships maintained by SMEs. ; We ...
Report
Personal bankruptcy and credit market competition
The effect of credit market competition on borrower default is theoretically ambiguous, because the quantity of credit supplied may rise or fall following an increase in competition. We investigate empirically the relationship between credit market competition, lending to households, and personal bankruptcy rates in the United States. We exploit the exogenous variation in market contestability brought on by banking deregulation at the state level: after deregulation, banks faced the threat of entry into their state markets. We find that deregulation increased competition for borrowers, ...
Conference Paper
Strategic pricing of payday loans: evidence from Colorado, 2000-2005
Conference Paper
Information asymmetries and the effects of banking mergers of firm-bank relationships
This study examines the effects of mergers between commercial banks and investment banks on firm-bank relationships and the pricing of loan contracts, focusing on the role of information asymmetries. I find that, prior to a public securities issuance, junk rated firms are more likely to switch lenders to a merged commercial-investment bank when their existing lenders are pure commercial banks. Borrowers that issue public securities and are in local lending relationships are less likely to switch lenders after their bank merges with an investment bank. Also, when issuing public debt, ...
Conference Paper
Scale economies at payday loan stores
Journal Article
Decline in consumer credit