Borrowing High versus Borrowing Higher: Price Dispersion and Shopping Behavior in the U.S. Credit Card Market
研究发现美国信用卡借款成本在个人间差异很大，即使控制风险和卡特征后仍存在，原因在于不同贷款机构的利率报价不同，且消费者搜索强度各异。
We document substantial cross-individual dispersion in U.S. credit card borrowing costs, even after controlling for borrower risk and card characteristics. That remaining dispersion arises because cross-lender pricing heterogeneity generates dispersion in annual percentage rate (APR) <it>offers</it> to borrowers, and borrowers vary in shopping intensity. Our empirics match administrative data to self-reported card shopping intensity and use instruments suggested by fair lending law to account for the endogeneity between APRs and search. The results show that shoppers versus nonshoppers pay APRs as different as those paid by borrowers in the best versus worst credit score deciles. We discuss implications for policy and practice. Received August 2, 2014; accepted July 7, 2015 by Editor Philip Strahan.