Selling Dreams: Endogenous Optimism in Lending Markets
研究了竞争性贷款市场中借款人的乐观信念如何内生形成，发现自我欺骗能提升借款人福利，解释了乐观为何不被市场淘汰，并指出低贷款成本和繁荣经济会催生乐观及广泛抵押贷款。
We propose a model of borrower optimism in competitive lending markets with asymmetric information. Borrowers engage in self-deception to arrive at beliefs that optimally trade off the anticipatory utility benefits and material costs of optimism. Lenders’ contract design shapes these benefits and costs. The model yields three key results. First, the borrower’s motivated cognition increases her material welfare, which explains why it is not driven out of markets. Second, in line with empirical evidence, a low cost of lending and a booming economy lead to optimism and the widespread collateralization of loans. Third, equilibrium collateral requirements may be inefficiently high.