High-Cost Consumer Credit: Desperation, Temptation and Default

I study the welfare consequences of regulations on high-cost consumer credit in the United States. I estimate a heterogeneous-agents model with uninsurable idiosyncratic risk, risk-based pricing of loans, and preference heterogeneity including households with self-control issues. I find that one-third of high-cost borrowers suffer from self-control issues. Noncontingent regulatory borrowing limits have distributional consequences within households with self-control issues. High-income households benefit from restrictions on borrowing because they face loose price schedules from lenders that allow them to overborrow. Low-income households face tight individually targeted loan price schedules that limit households’ borrowing capacity so that borrowing restrictions cannot improve welfare over them.