Identity is a critical concept in the rational interactions of any set of objects involving subject-object relationships. The objects must be distinguished according to some framework in order for such relationships to have meaning. In the world of economic systems, relationships such as...

The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) has a dual-frame sample design that supplements a standard area-probability frame with a sample of observations drawn from statistical records derived from tax returns. The tax-based frame is stratified on the basis of a "wealth index" constructed largely...

For many years, the cross-sectional Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) has shown relatively weak or inconsistent changes in the shape of the distribution of net worth, despite many shifts in income and other economic factors. In 2009, households that had taken part in the 2007 SCF were...

In 2009, the Federal Reserve Board implemented a survey of families that participated in the 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to gain detailed information on the effects of the recent recession on all types of households. Using data from the 2007-09 SCF panel, we highlight the variation in...

Credit to consumers and business is critical to the efficient functioning of the U.S. economy, and finance companies are a key source of such credit. Every five years, the Federal Reserve conducts a two-part survey: the Census of Finance Companies (CFC) to identify the universe of such firms and...

In discussions of household wealth, it is not surprising that discussion often tends to focus on the upper half of the wealth distribution: According to the 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), that group held 97.5 percent of all directly owned household wealth. This paper investigates the...

The boom in the subprime mortgage market yielded many loans with high LTV ratios. From a large proprietary database on subprime mortgages, we find that choice of mortgage rate type is not linear in loan sizes. A fixed rate mortgage contract is a popular choice when loan size, measured by LTV...

Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) shields purchasers from financial risks of losses exceeding insured collateral values if vehicles become total losses. Yet surprisingly little is known about the sales of this product, or consumers' attitudes toward it. In this study, we report the results of a...

This paper reviews the behavioral literature on inter-temporal choice and decision making under uncertainty and assesses the evidence on behavioral influences affecting consumers' credit decisions. The evidence reviewed suggests that consumers often do not consider all information available in...

The Credit Card Accountability and Disclosure Act (CARD Act) of 2009 restricted several risk management practices of credit card issuers. Using a quasi-experimental design with credit bureau data on consumer lending, we find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the act's restrictions on...