This paper charitably develops a possible metaphysical argument against usury, as a common ground on which theology and economics can consider the issue. The metaphysical framework is derived from Anselm's Augustinian-Platonist metaphysics of participation whereby all goods are good through the...

Whenever there is a disaster, there are complaints of price gouging — that is, of people selling critical goods at grossly inflated prices. Over the last half-century, states and territories have increasingly responded by adopting anti-gouging laws that limit how much sellers can increase...

Consumer credit regulation is in the midst of a doctrinal revolution. Usury laws, for centuries the mainstay of consumer credit regulation, have been repealed, preempted, or otherwise undermined. At the same time, changes in the structure of the consumer credit marketplace have weakened the...

Since ancient times the practices and ethics of bankers and banking in general have undergone a great deal of criticism. While lending is motivated by profit, and while households are not explicitly coerced into borrowing money, the justice of a system which exploits workers and at the same time...

This article argues that much of Scholastic and neo-Scholastic teaching on usury rests on practical considerations regarding redistribution and market instability. This aspect of usury is underappreciated by economists, especially those in the field of the history of economic thought. A core...

Limitations on or total prohibition of usury (or interest) have been a pervasive theme across religions and ancient societies. Since medieval times, two major institutional changes relating to non-performance of debt contracts have taken place, namely, the abolition of slavery and the evolution...

This chapter surveys the writings of medieval Jewish rabbis on usury during 1050-1565. These writings belonged to three literary genres: legal, ethical/pietistic, and Biblical commentary. After surveying the moralistic condemnations of usury by medieval rabbis, I illustrate three theoretical...

This chapter examines the intersection of dynamic pricing algorithms and U.S. price gouging laws. Recently, an increasing number of companies, particularly online retailers and technologically- enabled service providers, implemented pricing algorithms that dynamically update prices in real time...

Thirty-four states prohibit price increases during emergencies and individuals take costly actions to report violators. We measure experimentally the willingness to pay to report sellers who increase prices of personal protective equipment. Over 75% of subjects pay to report even if others are...

The use of high cost “payday loans” among subprime borrowers has generated substantial concern among policymakers. This paper provides the first evidence of substitution between “alternative” and “traditional” credit by exploiting an unexpected positive shock to traditional credit...

The thesis deals with usury and illegal lenders both on the domestic scene and abroad. The usury itself is defined by its characteristics, by adjudication and by historical connotations. The historical definition begins in Mesopotamia and ancient Rome, basically since the emergence of money. The...

It is often argued that people might take on too much high-cost debt because they are present focused and/or overoptimistic about how soon they will repay. We measure borrowers' present focus and overoptimism using an experiment with a large payday lender. Although the most inexperienced...

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to acute supply shortages across the country as well as concerns over price increases amid surging demand. In the process, it has reawakened a debate about whether and how to regulate “price gouging.” Animating this controversy is a longstanding conflict...

During the Colonial era usury laws in the United States were strict both in terms of the maximum rate that could be charged and the penalties that would be imposed. In Massachusetts in eighteenth century, for example, the maximum rate was 6 percent, and both principal and interest were forfeited...

In a world where the means of exchange is convertible into the numeraire consumption good at a fixed rate, no one wants to hold money over time - and due to convertibility there is no means by which the Friedman rule can generate deflation. This is the environment we study in this paper in order...

"In this trailblazing manifesto, political economist Ricardo Tranjan places tenants and landlords on either side of the class divide that splits North American society. What if there is no housing crisis, but instead a housing market working exactly as intended? What if rent hikes and eviction...

Introduction -- Expulsion, Jews, and Usury: Trajectories of Christian Thought and Practice -- Inventing Expulsion in England, 1154-1272 -- Inventing Expulsion in France, 1144-1270 -- Canonizing Expulsion: The Second Council of Lyon, 1274 -- Disseminating Expulsion: Synods, Summas, and Sermons --...

Although China's financial market grows more mature, an old, and arguably unethical form of finance — usury — still exists. In an age when the Internet is widely available, various online lending platforms allow access to varieties of usury cloaked in new forms. In this paper, we discuss...

All governments have an obligation to protect their territory and the wealth within that territory from external predation. In fact, since war has historically resulted in the plunder and destruction of wealth, it seems straightforward to suggest that the cost of providing adequate defense of...

“Rent-a-bank” arrangements are the vehicle of choice for subprime lenders seeking to avoid state usury, licensure, and other consumer protection laws. In a rent-a-bank arrangement, a non-bank lender contracts with a bank to make loans per its specifications and then buys the loans from the...

The use of high cost "payday loans" among subprime borrowers has generated substantial concern among policymakers. This paper provides the first evidence of substitution between "alternative" and "traditional" credit by exploiting an unexpected positive shock to traditional credit access among...

A usury contract is a null and void contract whereby someone, using the condition of another's misfortune or material hardship, lack of experience, recklessness, or dependency, obtains for himself or for a third party a benefit that is clearly disproportionate to what he or she has given or done...

Usury is a frequent occurrence in consumer credit markets and particularly affects low-income households. Although the term usury conjures images of a greedy individual consciously acting to exploit the weak bargaining position of another by deceitful and even fraudulent means, we consider it as...

I summarize the key points of the scholastic theory of usury following The Scholastic Analysis of Usury by John T. Noonan. Usury is the sin of taking interest on a loan without a just title. According to Scholastic moral theology, interest on loans may be justified by the extrinsic titles to...

We show that pharmaceutical mergers are a response to competitive pressure. Firms whose drugs face more competition tend to become acquirers and these acquirers pursue firms whose drugs hold strong competitive positions in their product spaces. However, we find no evidence of greater post-merger...

Regulators express growing concern over predatory loans, which the authors take to mean loans that borrowers should decline. Using a model of consumer credit in which such lending is possible, they identify the circumstances in which it arises both with and without competition. The authors find...

In 2006 Congress adopted the Military Lending Act (“MLA”) to protect active duty military service members and their families from high-cost, predatory loans. The core provision of the statute is a usury limit capping interest rates at no more than 36 percent per annum. The United States...

This article analyses facts about the community of former bank workers (x-banker), who migrated from both Indonesian conventional banks and Islamic banks. The hijra is a purification movement for understanding usury banking as a reaction to the failure of constructing sharia principles in...

Usury is a frequent occurrence in consumer credit markets and particularly affects low-income households. Although the term usury conjures images of a greedy individual consciously acting to exploit the weak bargaining position of another by deceitful and even fraudulent means, we consider it as...

Usury is a frequent occurrence in consumer credit markets and particularly affects low-income households. Systemic usury exploits poverty by shifting usury into additional products and leveraging usury gains by stringing together individual loan agreements. This paper reviews the economic...

The article presents a novel dynamic setting to compare old – usury – and new – cryptocurrency – money laundering techniques and uses it for calibration to shed light on their relative role as an effective device for the criminal organizations to clean their illegal revenues. The...

This article examines the conceptual transformation of what was once considered usury into finance. To counter traditional arguments that usury was exploitative and unnatural, early modern theorists reconceptualized debt as a form of investment for both borrowers and lenders. Today, this ethical...