IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedpwp/18-4.html

The Economics of Debt Collection: Enforcement of Consumer Credit Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Viktar Fedaseyeu
  • Robert M. Hunt

Abstract

Creditors often outsource the task of obtaining repayment from defaulting borrowers to third-party debt collectors. We argue that by hiring third-party debt collectors, creditors can avoid competing in terms of their debt collection practices. This explanation fits several empirical facts about third-party debt collection and is consistent with the evidence that third-party debt collectors use harsher debt collection practices than original creditors. Our model shows that the impact of third-party debt collectors on consumer welfare depends on the riskiness of the pool of borrowers and provides insights into which policy interventions may improve the functioning of the debt collection market.

Suggested Citation

  • Viktar Fedaseyeu & Robert M. Hunt, 2018. "The Economics of Debt Collection: Enforcement of Consumer Credit Contracts," Working Papers 18-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:18-4
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.21799/frbp.wp.2018.04
    Note: Supersedes working paper # 15-43
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/research-and-data/publications/working-papers/2018/wp18-04.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/https://doi.org/10.21799/frbp.wp.2018.04?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nazemi, Abdolreza & Rezazadeh, Hani & Fabozzi, Frank J. & Höchstötter, Markus, 2022. "Deep learning for modeling the collection rate for third-party buyers," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 240-252.
    2. Viktar Fedaseyeu, 2012. "Debt Collection Agencies and the Supply of Consumer Credit," Working Papers 442, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    3. Lawrence Santucci, 2015. "A tale of two vintages: credit limit management before and after the CARD act and Great Recession," Consumer Finance Institute discussion papers 15-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    4. LaVoice, Jessica & Vamossy, Domonkos F., 2024. "Racial disparities in debt collection," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    5. 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.
    6. Lukasz A. Drozd & Ricardo Serrano-Padial, 2017. "Modeling the Revolving Revolution: The Debt Collection Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 897-930, March.
    7. Igor Livshits, 2015. "Recent Developments In Consumer Credit And Default Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 594-613, September.
    8. Kamil ROMAN, 2018. "Payment Monitoring As A Leading Issue In The Operation Of Transport Companies In Poland," Transport Problems, Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Transport, vol. 13(4), pages 5-12, December.
    9. Julia Fonseca & Katherine Strair & Basit Zafar, 2017. "Access to credit and financial health: evaluating the impact of debt collection," Staff Reports 814, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    10. Jonathan Zinman, 2015. "Household Debt: Facts, Puzzles, Theories, and Policies," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 251-276, August.
    11. Johannes Kriebel & Kevin Yam, 2020. "Forecasting recoveries in debt collection: Debt collectors and information production," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(3), pages 537-559, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D18 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Protection
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:18-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Beth Paul (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbphus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.