Payday Loan Choices and Consequences
研究匹配发薪日贷款机构与信用局数据，发现借款人主流信贷渠道有限且信用历史长期薄弱，而发薪日贷款对信用评分等财务指标影响近乎为零。
High‐cost consumer credit has proliferated in the past two decades, raising regulatory scrutiny. We match administrative data from a payday lender with nationally representative credit bureau files to examine the choices of payday loan applicants and assess whether payday loans help or harm borrowers. We find consumers apply for payday loans when they have limited access to mainstream credit. In addition, the weakness of payday applicants’ credit histories is severe and longstanding. Based on regression discontinuity estimates, we show that the effects of payday borrowing on credit scores and other measures of financial well‐being are close to zero. We test the robustness of these null effects to many factors, including features of the local market structure.