Regulatory Interventions in Consumer Financial Markets: The Case of Credit Cards
构建了一个分析信用卡市场监管干预（如利率上限）效果的框架，校准发现多数借款人很少审查收到的信用卡报价，从而错失低利率和高非价格收益的卡片；模型表明利率上限会减少信贷供给并抑制贷款方市场势力，从而增加消费者剩余。
Abstract We build a framework to understand the effects of regulatory interventions in credit markets, such as caps on interest rates. We focus on the credit card market, in which we observe US consumers borrowing at high and very dispersed interest rates despite receiving many credit card offers. Our framework includes two main features to account for these patterns: the endogenous effort of examining offers and product differentiation. Our calibration suggests that most borrowers examine few of the offers they receive, and thereby forego cards with low interest rates and high non-price benefits. The calibrated model implies that interest-rate caps reduce credit supply and significantly curb lenders’ market power, thereby increasing consumer surplus. Moderate caps may yield larger gains in consumer surplus than tighter ones.