IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v56y2018i2p914-930.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Information Technology Revolution And The Unsecured Credit Market

Author

Listed:
  • Juan M. Sánchez

Abstract

The information technology (IT) revolution coincided with the transformation of the U.S. unsecured credit market. Households' borrowing increased rapidly and there was an even faster increase in bankruptcy filings. A risk of default model with asymmetric information and costly screening is introduced to study this period. When information costs are high, the design of contracts under private information prevents some households from borrowing with a risk of default. As information costs drop, households borrow more and bankruptcy filings increase. Quantitative exercises suggest that the IT revolution may have played an important role in the transformation of the unsecured credit market. (JEL E43, E44, G33)

Suggested Citation

  • Juan M. Sánchez, 2018. "The Information Technology Revolution And The Unsecured Credit Market," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 914-930, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:56:y:2018:i:2:p:914-930
    DOI: 10.1111/ecin.12519
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12519
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecin.12519?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John S. Jordan & Jane Katz, 1999. "Banking in the age of information technology," Regional Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 9(Q4), pages 24-30.
    2. Chatterjee, Satyajit & Corbae, Dean & Ríos-Rull, José-Víctor, 2008. "A finite-life private-information theory of unsecured consumer debt," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 149-177, September.
    3. Dirk Krueger & Fabrizio Perri, 2006. "Does Income Inequality Lead to Consumption Inequality? Evidence and Theory -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(1), pages 163-193.
    4. Igor Livshits & James MacGee & Michèle Tertilt, 2010. "Accounting for the Rise in Consumer Bankruptcies," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 165-193, April.
    5. Riley, John G, 1979. "Informational Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(2), pages 331-359, March.
    6. Satyajit Chatterjee & Dean Corbae & Makoto Nakajima & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2007. "A Quantitative Theory of Unsecured Consumer Credit with Risk of Default," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(6), pages 1525-1589, November.
    7. Borghan Nezami Narajabad, 2012. "Information Technology and the Rise of Household Bankruptcy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(4), pages 526-550, October.
    8. Igor Livshits & James MacGee & Michèle Tertilt, 2007. "Consumer Bankruptcy: A Fresh Start," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 402-418, March.
    9. Storesletten, Kjetil & Telmer, Christopher I. & Yaron, Amir, 2004. "Consumption and risk sharing over the life cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 609-633, April.
    10. Kartik Athreya & Xuan S. Tam & Eric R. Young, 2012. "A Quantitative Theory of Information and Unsecured Credit," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 153-183, July.
    11. Igor Livshits & James C. Mac Gee & Michèle Tertilt, 2016. "The Democratization of Credit and the Rise in Consumer Bankruptcies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(4), pages 1673-1710.
    12. Jonathan Eaton & Mark Gersovitz, 1981. "Debt with Potential Repudiation: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(2), pages 289-309.
    13. Wang, Cheng & Williamson, Steve, 1998. "Debt Contracts and Financial Intermediation with Costly Screening," Staff General Research Papers Archive 5086, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    14. Cheng Wang & Stephen D. Williamson, 1998. "Debt Contracts with Financial Intermediation with Costly Screening," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 573-595, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jiseob Kim, 2020. "How Unsecured Credit Policies Influence Mortgage and Unsecured Loan Defaults," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(5), pages 1271-1304, August.
    2. Tertilt, Michèle & Exler, Florian & Livshits, Igor & MacGee, Jim, 2020. "Consumer Credit with Over-Optimistic Borrowers," CEPR Discussion Papers 15570, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Sheng, Tianxiang, 2021. "The effect of fintech on banks’ credit provision to SMEs: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    4. Cifuentes, Rodrigo & Margaretic, Paula & Saavedra, Trinidad, 2020. "Measuring households' financial vulnerabilities from consumer debt: Evidence from Chile," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    5. Hodula, Martin, 2022. "Does Fintech credit substitute for traditional credit? Evidence from 78 countries," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gajendran Raveendranathan, 2018. "Improved Matching, Directed Search, and Bargaining in the Credit Card Market," Department of Economics Working Papers 2018-05, McMaster University.
    2. Kyle F Herkenhoff, 2019. "The Impact of Consumer Credit Access on Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(6), pages 2605-2642.
    3. Bulent Guler, 2015. "Innovations in Information Technology and the Mortgage Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(3), pages 456-483, July.
    4. Gajendran Raveendranathan & Georgios Stefanidis, 2020. "The Unprecedented Fall in U.S. Revolving Credit," Department of Economics Working Papers 2020-05, McMaster University.
    5. Igor Livshits, 2015. "Recent Developments In Consumer Credit And Default Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 594-613, September.
    6. Daphne Chen & Jake Zhao, 2017. "The Impact of Personal Bankruptcy on Labor Supply Decisions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 40-61, October.
    7. Satyajit Chatterjee & Dean Corbae & Kyle Dempsey & José‐Víctor Ríos‐Rull, 2023. "A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(5), pages 1803-1840, September.
    8. Raveendranathan, Gajendran, 2020. "Revolving credit lines and targeted search," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    9. Juan M. Sanchez, 2009. "The role of information in the rise in consumer bankruptcies," Working Paper 09-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    10. Nakajima, Makoto, 2017. "Assessing bankruptcy reform in a model with temptation and equilibrium default," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 42-64.
    11. Kyle F. Herkenhoff & Gajendran Raveendranathan, 2019. "Who Bears the Welfare Costs of Monopoly? The Case of the Credit Card Industry," Working Papers 2019-071, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    12. Carlos Hatchondo, Juan & Martinez, Leonardo & Sánchez, Juan M., 2015. "Mortgage defaults," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 173-190.
      • Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Juan M. Sanchez, 2011. "Mortgage defaults," Working Paper 11-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
      • Mr. Leonardo Martinez & Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Mr. Juan M. Sanchez, 2012. "Mortgage Defaults," IMF Working Papers 2012/026, International Monetary Fund.
      • Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Juan M. Sanchez, 2011. "Mortgage defaults," Working Papers 2011-019, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
      • Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Juan M. Sanchez, 2015. "Mortgage Defaults," CAEPR Working Papers 2015-011, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    13. Athreya, Kartik & Tam, Xuan S. & Young, Eric R., 2009. "Unsecured credit markets are not insurance markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 83-103, January.
    14. Kartik Athreya & José Mustre-del-Río & Juan M Sánchez, 2019. "The Persistence of Financial Distress," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(10), pages 3851-3883.
    15. Braxton, John Carter & Chikhale, Nisha & Herkenhoff, Kyle & Phillips, Gordon, 2024. "Intergenerational Mobility and Credit," IZA Discussion Papers 16826, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Igor Livshits & James MacGee & Michèle Tertilt, 2010. "Accounting for the Rise in Consumer Bankruptcies," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 165-193, April.
    17. Danisewicz, Piotr & Elard, Ilaf, 2023. "The real effects of financial technology: Marketplace lending and personal bankruptcy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    18. Zachary Bethune & Joaquín Saldain & Eric R. Young, 2024. "Consumer Credit Regulation and Lender Market Power," Staff Working Papers 24-36, Bank of Canada.
    19. Ionescu, Felicia & Simpson, Nicole, 2016. "Default risk and private student loans: Implications for higher education policies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 119-147.
    20. Winfried Koeniger & Thomas Hintermaier, 2009. "Bankruptcy and Debt Portfolios," 2009 Meeting Papers 348, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation

    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:bla:ecinqu:v:56:y:2018:i:2:p:914-930. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.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.