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Spillovers from Costly Credit

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  • Brian T Melzer

Abstract

Low-income households with proximate access to payday loans exhibit greater economic distress, higher take-up of food assistance benefits, and greater delinquency on child support payments than peers without proximate loan access. These findings suggest that borrowing can exacerbate distress, leading borrowers to use transfer programs and to prioritize payday loan payments over other liabilities like child support. In that way, payday lending produces negative externalities—costs imposed on taxpayers that fund transfer programs and nonresident family members that fail to receive child support. Received August 13, 2014; editorial decision December 5, 2016 by Editor Alexander Ljungqvist. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian T Melzer, 2018. "Spillovers from Costly Credit," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(9), pages 3568-3594.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:31:y:2018:i:9:p:3568-3594.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhx134
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    Cited by:

    1. Julia Fonseca, 2023. "Less Mainstream Credit, More Payday Borrowing? Evidence from Debt Collection Restrictions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(1), pages 63-103, February.
    2. Dasgupta, Kabir & Mason, Brenden J., 2020. "The effect of interest rate caps on bankruptcy: Synthetic control evidence from recent payday lending bans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    3. Daniel Bjorkegren & Joshua Blumenstock & Omowunmi Folajimi-Senjobi & Jacqueline Mauro & Suraj R. Nair, 2022. "Instant Loans Can Lift Subjective Well-Being: A Randomized Evaluation of Digital Credit in Nigeria," Papers 2202.13540, arXiv.org.
    4. Paul S. Calem & Chris Henderson & Jenna Wang, 2025. "Who Remains Unbanked in the United States and Why?," Working Papers 25-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    5. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    6. Lodermeier, Alison, 2024. "Credit access and housing insecurity: Evidence from winter utility shutoff protections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    7. Victor Medina-Olivares & Raffaella Calabrese, 2023. "Detecting Consumers' Financial Vulnerability using Open Banking Data: Evidence from UK Payday Loans," Papers 2306.01749, arXiv.org.
    8. Megan Doherty Bea, 2024. "A Life Course Perspective of Community (Non)Investment: Historical Financial Service Trajectories and Community Outcomes," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 288-307, June.
    9. Katharina Allinger & Elisabeth Beckmann, 2021. "Prevalence and determinants of nonbank borrowing in CESEE: evidence from the OeNB Euro Survey," Focus on European Economic Integration, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue Q1/21, pages 7-35.
    10. Leong, Kaiwen & Li, Huailu & Pavanini, Nicola & Walsh, Christoph, 2024. "The effects of policy interventions to limit illegal money lending," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    11. Megan Doherty Bea, 2023. "Relational foundations of an unequal consumer credit market: Symbiotic ties between banks and payday lenders," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 320-345, January.
    12. John Creamer & Lewis Warren, 2024. "Unbanked and impoverished? Exploring banking and poverty interactions over time," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 506-537, June.
    13. Fu, Shun & Li, Emma & Liao, Li & Wang, Zhengwei & Xiang, Hongyu, 2025. "Unveiling the villain: Credit supply and the debt trap," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Christine L. Dobridge, 2016. "For Better and for Worse? Effects of Access to High-Cost Consumer Credit," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2016-056, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Megan Doherty Bea & K. Bley, 2022. "(Un)conditional consumer protections in high‐cost lending regulation: Impacts on local lending geographies," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 1561-1596, December.

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