Consumer Finance
Our Consumer Finance Institute researches how people earn, spend, save, and invest, as well as how credit markets and payment systems affect the economy. Our goal is to foster a healthy consumer sector, a stable financial system, and a resilient regional and national economy.
Working Paper
Credit Scores and Inequality across the Life Cycle
WP 26-07 – Among a cohort born in the same year, inequality in consumption, income, and credit scores (reputational inequality) rises with age. Models of reputation formation are presented to explain these patterns. Information bans are studied.
Working Paper
Explaining Contract Heterogeneity in the Credit Card Market
WP 26-03 – Administrative data are used to establish facts on terms, usage, and default rate of credit card accounts. A credit card model is developed to explain the facts. The model explains high MPCs and implies the rate caps are welfare-reducing.
Working Paper
Consumer Credit with Over-Optimistic Borrowers
WP 21-42/R – Do cognitive biases call for regulation to limit the use of credit? We incorporate over-optimistic and rational borrowers into an incomplete markets model with consumer bankruptcy.
Working Paper
Not Cashing In on Cashing Out: An Analysis of Low Cash-Out Refinance Rates
WP 26-01 – More than half of borrowers who have both home equity and high-interest loans fail to reduce their overall debt burden by folding this high-interest debt into a lower-interest mortgage when they undertake a mortgage refinance.
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Lender File
31 Jul ’25
The HMDA Lender File includes characteristics of firms receiving mortgage applications and originating loans. The data set enables users to connect HMDA filers to their parent organizations and compare a filer’s lending over time.
Report
Student Loans for Graduate School: Who Will Be Affected by the New Federal Lending Limits?
This report brings novel evidence on the potential effects of newly enacted reductions in federal borrowing limits for graduate education.