In 2017, non-bankruptcy public records were purged from U.S. consumer credit reports. We use theremoval of this predictive information to estimate the individual and equilibrium effects of informationon credit. For consumers who lose a public record, the likelihood of having a credit card andan...

We illustrate information overload in annuity decisions. More complete, and therefore more complex information about annuity products leads to reduced attention and produces worse consumer choices. In an eye-tracking experiment comparing consumer response to a real, relatively brief annuity...

Using court orders called civil judgments, creditors can garnish wages and seize assets for unpaid consumer debts. We provide the first comprehensive description of civil judgments across states and time. Civil judgments are about twice as common as bankruptcy filings. Civil judgments are 20...

We identify a new source of consolidation in the banking industry. For decades, boththe financial and real sides of the economy have experienced considerable consolidation. Weshow that banking-sector consolidation is, in part, a consequence of real-sector consolidation;because small banks are a...

Vague language is ubiquitous in financial and legal communication. Vague phrases like “in some cases” and “may or may not” are used to succinctly convey complexity and uncertainty around terms and conditions, but it is unclear what likelihoods these phrases actually convey to consumers....

Foreclosures have large societal costs, and in many cases are more costly to mortgage- holders than the borrower resuming payments. In 2014, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) implemented regulations for mortgage servicers aimed at addressing servicer conduct that may have led...

This paper studies the relationship between economic conditions and entry into the credit market using unique tradeline-level data that precisely identify the timing, product type, and age of entry into the credit market. We show that economic conditions are related to both the timing of entry...

This paper studies the effect of increased application costs on small business loan demand. Using data on loan applications, I find that applicants disproportionately choose loan amounts just below thresholds where credit underwriting requires supplementary information from applicants and...

We study consumer use of two short-term credit products offered by banks: overdraft and deposit advance. On average, consumers who use overdraft pay 13 percent of their monthly deposits to cover fees; consumers who use deposit advance pay less than 2 percent. Data averages show that fees grow...

Many struggling mortgage borrowers who have home equity lose it through foreclosure. To explainwhy they do not just sell their homes instead, this paper develops a new model of mortgage default in which homeowners face psychic moving costs. A transparent calibration procedure yields psychic...