Publications

SSRN

February 2009
Background Note

An Introduction to Consumer Credit

By: Peter Tufano

This note reviews a variety of shorter-term consumer credit products in the U.S. with an emphasis on the types of products that low- and moderate-income consumers use. Included here are the following: credit cards, bank overdraft products, payday lending, personal... View Details

Keywords: Credit; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; United States

Educators

Research Summary

The Politics of Consumer Credit

By: Gunnar Trumbull

A combination of factors has dramatically increased consumer access to and reliance upon credit across the OECD. These factors include financial liberalization and deregulation, improvements in consumer credit information and its analysis, and a growth in debt... View Details

06 Dec 2020
Working Paper Summaries

'Repayment-by-Purchase' Helps Consumers to Reduce Credit Card Debt

Keywords: by Grant E. Donnelly, Cait Lamberton, Stephen Bush, Zoe Chance, and Michael I. Norton

Fall 2011
Article

A Brief Postwar History of U.S. Consumer Finance

By: Gunnar Trumbull and Peter Tufano

In this brief history of U.S. consumer finance since World War II, the sector is defined based on the functions delivered by firms in the form of payments, savings and investing, borrowing, managing risk, and providing advice. Evidence of major trends in consumption,... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Finance; Consumer Credit; U.s. History; Consumer Behavior; Personal Finance; Credit; Trends; History; United States

14 Mar 2011
Research & Ideas

Keeping Credit Flowing to Consumers in Need

issues, the Joint Center held a symposium in February 2010 on Moving Forward: The Future of Consumer Credit and Mortgage Finance." A new book, co-edited by Retsinas and Eric S. Belsky, managing director... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

2014
Book

Consumer Lending in France and America: Credit and Welfare

By: Gunnar Trumbull

Why did America embrace consumer credit over the course of the twentieth century, when most other countries did not? How did American policy makers by the late twentieth century come to believe that more credit would make even poor families better off? This book traces... View Details

Keywords: Attitudes; Credit; France; United States

Americans are awash in debt. Credit undergirds daily life more than ever before—it is one of the defining aspects of life in the United States today. The damage from a depressed housing market is exacerbated by the subprime lender implosion, sending shock waves... View Details

May 2010
Case

Alpen Bank: Launching the Credit Card in Romania

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sunru Yong

In 2006, the country manager for Alpen Bank in Romania, Gregory Carle, considers whether to recommend the launch of a credit card business. The firm rejected the idea several years earlier because of poor economic conditions in Romania. However, Romania is experiencing... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Credit; International Business; International Marketing; Product Introduction; Service Management; Credit Cards; Globalized Firms and Management; Product Positioning; Marketing Strategy; Service Delivery; Personal Finance; Product Launch; Banking Industry; European Union; Romania

Educators

July 1992
Case

Bank One and Increased Consumer Credit

By: Stephen A. Greyser

Keywords: Credit; Banking Industry

2010
Working Paper

Banking Market Concentration and Consumer Credit Constraints: Evidence from the 1983 Survey of Consumer Finances

This paper uses data from the 1983 Survey of Consumer Finances to test the relationship between the banks' market power and households' self-reported levels of credit constraints. The 1983 Survey was the last to identify households' geographic location, making it... View Details

Keywords: Age Characteristics; Household Characteristics; Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Banks and Banking; Interest Rates; Geographic Location; Banking Industry

Read Now

14 Dec 2010
Working Paper Summaries

Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America

Keywords: by Gunnar Trumbull

2010
Working Paper

Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America

By: J. Gunnar Trumbull

Theories of legitimate regulation have emphasized the role of governments either in fixing market failures to promote greater efficiency or in restricting the efficient functioning of markets in order to pursue public welfare goals. In either case, features of markets... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Credit; Financial Markets; Personal Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Welfare; France; United States

Read Now

2008
Book

Borrowing to Live: Consumer and Mortgage Credit Revisited

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Eric S. Belsky

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Customers; Credit; Mortgages

2011
Book

Moving Forward: The Future of Consumer Credit and Mortgage Finance

By: Nicolas P. Retsinas and Eric Belsky

The recent collapse of the mortgage market revealed fractures in the credit market that have deep roots in the system's structure, conduct, and regulation. The time has come for a clear-eyed assessment of what happened and how the system should be strengthened and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Capital Markets; Credit; Financial Markets; Mortgages; Personal Finance; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Demand and Consumers; Financial Services Industry

The recent collapse of the mortgage market revealed fractures in the credit... View Details

May 2012 (Revised July 2012)
Case

Credit Unions: The Future of the Cooperative Financial Institution

By: Robert C. Pozen and Grace Hou

Credit unions are a specialized type of depository institution with a cooperative, non-profit structure and a federal tax exemption. They originated as small, cooperative institutions with an emphasis on uncollateralized consumer lending to the unbanked... View Details

Keywords: Banking; Credit Unions; Banks and Banking

Educators