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Impacts of interest rate caps on the payday loan market: Evidence from Rhode Island

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  • Fekrazad, Amir

Abstract

Interest rate caps are the most common form of payday loan regulation, yet little academic research has examined their consequences. I investigate the impacts of tightening the cap from 15% to 10% in Rhode Island, using a difference-in-difference framework and a unique proprietary dataset of payday loans issued by major nationwide lenders between 2009 and 2013. Lenders always charge the prevailing cap, creating a sharp and clean variation in interest rate. I show that loan usage increases at the extensive and intensive margins, amounting to elasticity estimates in the range of 0.7–1.0. I also find that loan sequences become longer and more likely to end with default. No lenders exit the market, implying that market power existed. Furthermore, I find no evidence of credit rationing as a result of the lower cap. These changes imply an upper bound of $3.3 million per year for neoclassical consumer surplus. However, I show that behavioral consumers can be worse off by the policy if more than half of the increase in demand is due to overborrowing.

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  • Fekrazad, Amir, 2020. "Impacts of interest rate caps on the payday loan market: Evidence from Rhode Island," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:113:y:2020:i:c:s0378426620300170
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2020.105750
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    Cited by:

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer finance; Subprime credit market; Payday loans; Interest rate cap; Demand; Policy evaluation; Welfare analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D18 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Protection
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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