Piercing through Opacity: Relationships and Credit Card Lending to Consumers and Small Businesses during Normal Times and the COVID-19 Crisis
研究了关系型借贷对信用卡合同条款的影响，发现正常时期消费者因关系获得更优条款，小企业则否；但疫情中两者均获改善，符合跨期平滑理论。
We build a bridge between relationship lending and transactions lending—investigating relationship effects on contract terms for credit cards, a relatively pure transactions-lending technology. Using more than 1 million accounts, we find that during normal times, consumers with relationships obtain better terms but small businesses with relationships do not. Both groups obtain improved terms during COVID-19, consistent with intertemporal smoothing—relationship borrowers obtain more favorable terms during crises, paid for by worse terms in normal times. Among other findings, CARES Act impediments to reporting consumer delinquencies to credit bureaus, designed to protect customers, reduced informational value of credit scores, penalizing safer consumers.