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The Transactions Demand for Credit Cards

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Author Info
Kathleen Johnson (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System)
Abstract

I argue that the measure of credit card debt used by researchers has grown rapidly in part because it captures debt arising from transactions in which a credit card is used because of its advantages over other payment instruments. Increases in debt stemming from such use may not signal greater household financial vulnerability if households are willing and able to repay this short-term debt. However, it may suggest that the cost of using credit cards to pay for purchases has declined relative to other payment instruments. I conclude that had transactions demand remained at its real 1992 levels, rather than growing almost 15 percent per year, measured credit card debt would have grown a bit less than 1 percentage point slower per year between 1992 and 2001. Moreover, I show that removing transactions demand from aggregate consumer credit can alter conclusions about the relationship between credit and consumption.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Berkeley Electronic Press in its journal Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy.

Volume (Year): 7 (2007)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 1411-1411
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Handle: RePEc:bep:eaptop:v:7:y:2007:i:1:p:1411-1411

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Related research
Keywords: credit cards transactions demand household credit

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Carow, Kenneth A. & Staten, Michael E., 1999. "Debit, credit, or cash: survey evidence on gasoline purchases," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 409-421, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Carroll, Christopher D & Kimball, Miles S, 1996. "On the Concavity of the Consumption Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 981-92, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Humphrey, David B., 2004. "Replacement of cash by cards in US consumer payments," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 211-225. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Whitesell, William C, 1992. "Deposit Banks and the Market for Payment Media," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 24(4), pages 483-98, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Philippe BACCHETTA & Stefan GERLACH, 1997. "Consumption and Credit Constraints : International Evidence," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 9707, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP.
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  6. Greene, William H, 1981. "On the Asymptotic Bias of the Ordinary Least Squares Estimator of the Tobit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 505-13, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Christopher D. Carroll & Wendy E. Dunn, 1997. "Unemployment Expectations, Jumping (S,s) Triggers, and Household Balance Sheets," NBER Working Papers 6081, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Chung, Ching-Fan & Goldberger, Arthur S, 1984. "Proportional Projections in Limited Dependent Variable Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 531-34, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. David B. Gross & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2002. "Do Liquidity Constraints And Interest Rates Matter For Consumer Behavior? Evidence From Credit Card Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 117(1), pages 149-185, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Jonathan A. Parker, 1999. "The Reaction of Household Consumption to Predictable Changes in Social Security Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 959-973, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Duca, John V & Whitesell, William C, 1995. "Credit Cards and Money Demand: A Cross-sectional Study," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(2), pages 604-23, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Ryan R. Brady, 2007. "Consumer Credit, Liquidity and the Transmission Mechanism of Monetary Policy," Departmental Working Papers 20, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Karen E. Dynan & Donald L. Kohn, 2007. "The rise in U.S. household indebtedness: causes and consequences," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-37, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  3. Jonathan Zinman, 2007. "Where is the missing credit card debt? Clues and implications," Payment Cards Center Discussion Paper 07-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
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