How does the large market for credit score improvement products affect consumers and market efficiency? For consumers …, we use a randomized encouragement design on a standard credit builder loan (CBL) and find null average effects on scores … credit activity. CBLs induce delinquency on pre-existing loan obligations, suggesting that even a seemingly modest additional …

This paper studies the equilibrium effects of information restrictions in credit markets using a large-scale natural … experiment. In 2012, Chilean credit bureaus were forced to stop reporting defaults for 2.8 million individuals (21% of the adult …

This paper utilizes a unique new dataset of credit card accounts to analyze how people respond to changes in credit … supply. The data consist of a panel of thousands of individual credit card accounts from several different card issuers, with … associated credit bureau data. We estimate both marginal propensities to consume (MPCs) out of liquidity and interest …

bankruptcy risk discouraging households from using credit. This finding contradicts the intuition that access to credit helps …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 …

during the housing crisis. We use proprietary loan-level panel data matched to consumer credit records using borrowers … relative terms, and an overall improvement in household credit standing. New financing of durable consumption by borrowers with … lower housing wealth responds more to mortgage payment reduction relative to wealthier households. Credit …

borrowers. However, social connections require costly certification (skin in the game) to inform credit risk. Early research … capture some rents associated with the removal of the cost of that financial intermediation. Risk and portfolio choice …