For a half century, nonprofit credit counseling organizations have offered financial education and budget counseling sessions at nominal cost to borrowers. They also negotiate comprehensive repayment plans with a borrower's unsecured creditors. These repayment plans provide an alternative to...

Fraud alerts — initial fraud alerts, extended fraud alerts, and credit freezes — help protect consumers from the consequences of identity theft. At the same time, they may impose costs on lenders, credit bureaus, and, in some instances, consumers. We analyze a unique data set of anonymized...