We examine the effect of undiagnosed memory disorders on credit outcomes using nationally representative credit reporting data merged with Medicare data. Years prior to eventual diagnosis, average credit scores begin to weaken and payment delinquency begins to increase, overall and for mortgage...

This paper studies the sources of suboptimal allocations observed in credit card repayments using a diagnostic laboratory experiment. Using a series of treatments, we present two main findings. First, suboptimal allocations persist in extremely simple choice environments. Particularly, neither...

We study the causal effect of mortgage rate changes on consumer spending, debt repayment, and defaults during an expansionary and a contractionary monetary policy episode in Canada. Our identification takes advantage of the fact that the interest rates of short-term fixed-rate mortgages (the...

We study the causal effect of mortgage rate changes on consumer spending, debt repayment, and defaults during an expansionary and a contractionary monetary policy episode in Canada. Our identification takes advantage of the fact that the interest rates of short-term fixed-rate mortgages (the...

One of the most important channels through which monetary policy affects the real economy is changes in mortgage rates. This paper studies the effects of mortgage rate changes resulting from monetary policy shifts on homeowners’ spending, debt repayment and defaults. The Canadian institutional...

Does automatic enrollment into a retirement plan increase financial distress due to increased borrowing outside the plan? We study a natural experiment created when the U.S. Army began automatically enrolling newly hired civilian employees into the Thrift Savings Plan. Four years after hire,...

Innovations in financial technology have expanded individuals' access to unsecured personal loans. Building on insights from consumer behavior research that link negative emotions to credit-financed consumption, we show that transitory emotion influences households' use of online loans....

We report the results of a longitudinal intervention with students across five universities in China designed to reduce online consumer debt. Our research design allocates individuals to either a financial literacy treatment, a self-control training program, or a zero-touch control group....