The Economics Of Consumer Credit

Cross-national analysis of empirical, theoretical, and policy issues in the consumer credit industry, including household debt, credit card usage, and bankruptcy.

This article provides an introduction to a law review symposium by the Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy on our book (co-authored with Michael E. Staten), Consumer Credit and the American Economy (Oxford 2014). The conference, held November 2014, collects several articles responding to and building on the research agenda laid out by our book. For those who have not read the book, this article is intended to summarize several of the main themes of the book, including discussion of economic models of consumer credit usage, trends in consumer credit usage over time, the use of high-cost credit, and behavioral economics.

Consumer Credit and the American Economy examines the economics, behavioral science, sociology, history, institutions, law, and regulation of consumer credit in the United States. After discussing the origins and various kinds of consumer credit available in today's marketplace, this book reviews at some length the long run growth of consumer credit to explore the widely held belief that somehow consumer credit has risen "too fast for too long." It then turns to demand and supply with chapters discussing neoclassical theories of demand, new behavioral economics, and evidence on production costs and why consumer credit might seem expensive compared to some other kinds of credit like government finance. This discussion includes review of the economics of risk management and funding sources, as well discussion of the economic theory of why some people might be limited in their credit search, the phenomenon of credit rationing. This examination includes review of issues of risk management through mathematical methods of borrower screening known as credit scoring and financial market sources of funding for offerings of consumer credit. The book then discusses technological change in credit granting. It examines how modern automated information systems called credit reporting agencies, or more popularly "credit bureaus," reduce the costs of information acquisition and permit greater credit availability at less cost. This discussion is followed by examination of the logical offspring of technology, the ubiquitous credit card that permits consumers access to both payments and credit services worldwide virtually instantly. After a chapter on institutions that have arisen to supply credit to individuals for whom mainstream credit is often unavailable, including "payday loans" and other small dollar sources of loans, discussion turns to legal structure and the regulation of consumer credit. There are separate chapters on the theories behind the two main thrusts of federal regulation to this point, fairness for all and financial disclosure. Following these chapters, there is another on state regulation that has long focused on marketplace access and pricing. Before a final concluding chapter, another chapter focuses on two noncredit marketplace products that are closely related to credit. The first of them, debt protection including credit insurance and other forms of credit protection, is economically a complement. The second product, consumer leasing, is a substitute for credit use in many situations, especially involving acquisition of automobiles. This chapter is followed by a full review of consumer bankruptcy, what happens in the worst of cases when consumers find themselves unable to repay their loans. Because of the importance of consumer credit in consumers' financial affairs, the intended audience includes anyone interested in these issues, not only specialists who spend much of their time focused on them. For this reason, the authors have carefully avoided academic jargon and the mathematics that is the modern language of economics. It also examines the psychological, sociological, historical, and especially legal traditions that go into fully understanding what has led to the demand for consumer credit and to what the markets and institutions that provide these products have become today.

This book is an investigation into the economic policy formulation and practice of neoliberalism in Britain from the 1950s through to the financial crisis and economic downturn that began in 2007-8. It demonstrates that influential economists, such as F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, authors at key British think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies, and important political figures of the Thatcher and New Labour governments shared a similar conception of the consumer. For neoliberals, the idea that consumers were weak in the face of businesses and large corporations was almost offensive. Instead, consumers were imagined to be sovereign agents in the economy, whose consumption decisions played a central role in the construction of their human capital and in the enabling of their aspirations. Consumption, just like production, came to be viewed as an enterprising and entrepreneurial activity. Consequently, from the early 1980s until the present day, it was felt necessary that banks should have the freedom to meet the borrowing needs of consumers. Credit rationing would be a thing of the past. Just like businesses, consumers and households could use debt to expand their stock of personal assets. By utilizing the method of French philosopher Michel Foucault this book provides an original analysis of the policy ideas and political speeches of key figures in the New Right, in government and at the Bank of England. And it addresses the key question as to why policy-makers both in Britain and the United States did little or nothing to stem rising consumer and household indebtedness, instead always choosing to see increasing house prices and homeownership as a positive to be encouraged.

Consumer credit borrowing – using credit cards, store cards and personal loans – is an important and routine part of many of our lives. But what happens when these everyday forms of borrowing go ‘bad’, when people start to default on their loans and when they cannot, or will not, repay? It is this poorly understood, controversial, but central part of both the consumer credit industry and the lived experiences of an increasing number of people that this book explores. Drawing on research from the interior of the debt collections industry, as well as debtors' own accounts and historical research into technologies of lending and collection, it examines precisely how this ever more sophisticated, globally connected market functions. It focuses on the highly intimate techniques used to try and recoup defaulting debts from borrowers, as well as on the collection industry’s relationship with lenders. Joe Deville follows a journey of default, from debtors’ borrowing practices, to the intrusion of collections technologies into their homes and everyday lives, to the collections organisation, to attempts by debtors to seek outside help. In the process he shows how to understand this particular market, we need to understand the central role played within it by emotion and affect. By opening up for scrutiny an area of the economy which is often hidden from view, this book makes a major contribution both to understanding the relationship between emotion and calculation in markets and the role of consumer credit in our societies and economies. This book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers in a range of fields, including sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, economics and social psychology.

. . . provides an excellent example of economic analysis using atypical analytical approaches. . . the book is very accessible, especially to readers with some grounding in economics. Mathematical models and empirical evidence are appropriately used and the writing is superb. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students should be able to follow the analysis and will benefit from seeing the alternative analytics at work. Of course economists of all stripes will find something useful in this book as will anyone with a strong interest in understanding the current economic crisis. Richard V. Adkisson, The Social Science Journal For those who do not mind a stimulating read, the book by Christopher Brown, Inequality, Consumer Credit and the Saving Puzzle, is recommended. . . the book is exciting, tracing the causes for the uncommonly low savings rate in American households. . . this book is written in nearly colloquial language and easily understood. It is divided into eight chapters, each of which addresses one theme group, respectively. The author evaluates in detail literary sources, and also examines alternative approaches, but always returns to his line of thought. Relationships that he perceives as important are exemplified through small models. In addition to that, he always attempts to support the central thesis with statistics. In particular, to read those statistics is very exciting. Conclusion: a book definitely worth reading. Friedrich Thießen, Bankhistorisches Archiv Brown makes an important contribution to the field of consumer credit by presenting a broad view of the issues and problems associated with growing consumer credit habits, culture, and institutions. . . This book effectively uses a heterodox methodology, which will appeal to a wide audience of social scientists. Highly recommended. R.H. Scott, Choice Providing much needed context for current events like the sub-prime mortgage crisis, this timely book presents a vision of an economy evolved to greater dependence on consumer credit and analyzes the trade-offs and risks associated with it. While synthesizing the Keynesian theory of consumption with the Institutional theory of habit selection (brought up to date with new knowledge from evolutionary biology and neuroscience), this book represents an in-depth treatment of the macroeconomic dimensions of consumer credit and implications of recent financial innovations from a non-traditional economic approach. Some of the effects of consumer credit dependence include the potential for illiquidity in markets for debt-collateralized securities, sub-prime contagion, or the possibility of a Minsky-type debt deflation episode. The author also argues that a sharp increase in borrowing by US households over the past 20 years, aided by financial innovations such as the securitization of consumer loans and sub-prime lending, have lessened the harmful consequences of income inequality, and that the collapse of personal saving after 1993 is actually a gradual trend of consumer habits conforming to the imperatives of corporatism. The book s primary audience will be academic economists in sympathy with heterodox and pluralist approaches. It sets forth an institutional or top-down theory of household spending behavior that should be of interest to readers in fields such as sociology, consumer or family studies, psychology, or anthropology. Much of the book is technically accessible for non-economists and students.

The language of credit and debt is almost ubiquitous in daily life. In advanced modern societies, financial institutions and other organizations have become increasingly active in lending money to consumers, and consumers apparently more than willing to take advantage. This groundbreaking new book offers an analysis of this important phenomenon, arguing that we have entered an era in which credit and debt are sanctioned, delivered and collected through new cultural and economic mechanisms. Written in an accessible and straightforward style, the book takes a multi-disciplinary approach, examining consumer credit and debt in both societal and economic contexts. It explores key topics such as: the historical context of credit and debt current theories of a consumer-centred society the credit industry attempts at government regulation. Credit and Consumer Society establishes the wider analysis of consumer credit and debt as a discipline in its own right. It is important reading for students and researchers in business and management, finance, public policy and sociology, as well as for policy makers and consumer groups working directly in this field.

From the early forms of loans to farmers to present day credit cards, consumer credit has always been part of human life and economics. However, ever since the Bible, controversy has reigned as to its legitimacy. It is the history of this controversy that is presented here by the authors. Outlining significant developments in different aspects of consumer credit from the Hammurabi Code through to current questions such as household overindebtedness, they shed some historical light on modern debates.