In the data, most consumer defaults on unsecured credit are informal and the lending industry devotes significant … resources to debt collection. We develop a new theory of credit card lending that takes these two features into account. The two …. We show that the model gives rise to a novel channel through which IT progress can affect outcomes in the credit markets …

Practically all industrialized economies restrict the length of time that credit bureaus can retain borrowers’ negative … credit information. There is, however, a large variation in the permitted retention times across countries. By exploiting a … earlier from credit files. We find that the loss of information led banks to tighten their lending standards significantly as …

We ask two questions related to how access to credit affects the nature of business cycles. First, does the standard … theory of unsecured credit account for the high volatility and procyclicality of credit and the high volatility and … that more households than normal fare very poorly). Second, does access to credit smooth aggregate consumption or aggregate …

In the United States today, there is at least one credit bureau file, and probably three, for every credit …-using individual in the country. Over 2 billion items of information are added to these files every month, and over 2 million credit … reports are issued every day. Real-time access to credit bureau information has reduced the time required to approve a loan …

consumer credit counseling service industry. Leading the moderated discussion were four senior executives from regional credit … counseling firms associated with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). Jerome Johnson, president and CEO and … Ghyll Theurer, program manager represented the Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) of South Jersey, a program of …

Swedish law mandates the removal of information about past credit arrears from the individuals’ credit reports after … three years. By exploiting a quasi-experimental variation in retention times caused by a change in the credit bureau …-run credit scores, loan applications, credit access, and future defaults.> We find that a prolonged retention time increases the …

This paper compares outcomes for borrowers who received face-to-face credit counseling with similarly situated … consumers who opted for counseling via the telephone or Internet. Counseling outcomes are measured using consumer credit report … who received credit counseling either in-person or via the telephone during 2003. A second sample of 12,000 clients …