Debit cards are overtaking credit cards as the most prevalent form of electronic payment at the point of sale, yet the determinants of a ubiquitous consumer choice-"debit or credit?"-have received relatively little scrutiny. Several stylized facts suggest that debit-card use is driven by...

The dramatic rise in credit card charge-offs in the midst of a vigorous expansion suggests that bank card borrowers have become inherently riskier. This paper investigates how the mix of credit card borrowers has changed in recent years, and how those changes affect delinquency risk. The new...

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) Consumer Credit Panel, created from a sample of U.S. consumer credit reports, is an ongoing panel of quarterly data on individual and household debt. The panel shows a substantial run-up in total consumer indebtedness between the first quarter of 1999...

Credit lines offered by credit cards contain an option arising from changing default probabilities of cardholders. The option value can explain high credit card rates and high profits of card issuers. The card rate producing zero profit for card issuers is higher than interest rates on most...