Using a comprehensive sample of credit card data from a leading Chinese bank, we find that government bureaucrats receive 16% higher credit lines than non-bureaucrats with similar income and demographics, but their accounts experience a significantly higher likelihood of delinquency and debt...

Central to the field of consumer finance is that consumers make financial decisions that do not always coincide with the financial decisions ideally depicted in optimal economic models. In this review, we discuss developments in the field of household finance, focusing on how consumers make...

Using Federal Reserve (Fed) confidential stress test data, we exploit the gap between the Fed and bank capital projections as an exogenous shock to banks and analyze how this shock is transmitted to consumer credit markets. First, we document that banks in the 90th percentile of the capital gap...

In this paper we study whether consumers optimally choose between formal and informal credit, using a unique panel dataset with all registered information available on consumers' behavior within the Swedish alternative and mainstream credit markets. Specifically, we analyze to what extent credit...

This paper empirically examines the benefits of relationship banking to banks, in the context of consumer credit markets. Using a unique panel dataset that contains comprehensive information about the relationships between a large bank and its credit card customers, we estimate the effects of...

We analyze an experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank that offered consumers a choice between two credit card contracts, one with an annual fee but a lower interest rate and one with no annual fee but a higher interest rate. We find that on average consumers chose the credit contract that...

In cross-sectional data sets from ten credit markets, we find that middle-aged adults borrow at lower interest rates and pay fewer fees relative to younger and older adults. Fee and interest payments are minimized around age 53. The measured effects are not explained by observed risk...