America’s small businesses have adopted credit cards as both a payment method and a borrowing vehicle. The segment also uses other payment card products, including debit, charge, and prepaid cards. The dollar volume of spending with cards designed for small businesses increased by 230 percent...

The authors investigate the extent to which monetary policy can enhance the functioning of the private credit system. Specifically, they characterize the optimal return on money in the presence of credit arrangements. There is a dual role for credit: It allows buyers to trade without fiat money...

The author studies the terms of credit in a competitive market in which sellers (lenders) are willing to repeatedly finance the purchases of buyers (borrowers) by engaging in a credit relationship. The key frictions are: (i) the lender is unable to observe the borrower's ability to repay a loan;...

This paper uses a unique data set to shed new light on the credit availability and credit performance of consumer bankruptcy filers. In particular, our data allow us to distinguish between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings, to observe changes in credit demand and supply explicitly, to...

We develop an empirical framework for the credit risk analysis of a generic portfolio of revolving credit accounts and apply it to analyze a representative panel data set of credit card accounts from a credit bureau. These data cover the period of the most recent deep recession and provide the...

This paper examines the different effects of macroprudential policy and monetary policy on credit and inflation using a simple New Keynesian model with credit. In this model, macroprudential policy is effective in stabilizing credit but has a limited effect on inflation. Monetary policy with an...

Using a segmented market model that includes state-dependent asset market decisions along with access to credit, we analyze the impact that transactions credit has on interest rates and prices. We find that the availability of credit substantially changes the dynamics in the model, allowing...

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 key elements of our model are moral hazard and costly...

The author studies the terms of credit in a competitive market in which sellers are willing to repeatedly finance the purchases of buyers by extending direct credit. Lenders (sellers) can commit to deliver any long-term credit contract that does not result in a payoff that is lower than that...