IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jmoncb/v41y2009i8p1691-1703.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

In Defense of Usury Laws

Author

Listed:
  • GIUSEPPE COCO
  • DAVID DE MEZA

Abstract

Usury law is often criticized by economists for curtailing lending and thus creating deadweight costs. This paper shows that if moral hazard leads to credit rationing, a just‐binding usury law creates a deadweight gain. This property also holds in most market‐clearing equilibria. Independent of social insurance benefits, or curbing present‐biased preferences, interest rate caps have merit.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuseppe Coco & David De Meza, 2009. "In Defense of Usury Laws," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1691-1703, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jmoncb:v:41:y:2009:i:8:p:1691-1703
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1538-4616.2009.00274.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2009.00274.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2009.00274.x?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:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greer, Douglas F, 1974. "Rate Ceilings, Market Structure, and the Supply of Finance Company Personal Loans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(5), pages 1363-1382, December.
    2. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1992. "Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1343-1366, September.
    3. Posner, Eric A, 1995. "Contract Law in the Welfare State: A Defense of the Unconscionablility Doctrine, Usury Laws, and Related Limitations on the Freedom to Contract," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(2), pages 283-319, June.
    4. Michael Manove & A. Jorge Padilla, 1999. "Banking (Conservatively) with Optimists," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 324-350, Summer.
    5. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997. "Credit Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-248, April.
    6. Giuseppe Coco & David De Meza, 2009. "In Defense of Usury Laws," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1691-1703, December.
    7. de Meza, David & Southey, Clive, 1996. "The Borrower's Curse: Optimism, Finance and Entrepreneurship," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(435), pages 375-386, March.
    8. Ordover, Janusz & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Information and the Law: Evaluating Legal Restrictions on Competitive Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 399-404, May.
    9. Coco, G., 1997. "Credit Rationing and the Welfare Gain from Usury Laws," Discussion Papers 9715, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    10. David Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 2005. "Estimating Discount Functions with Consumption Choices over the Lifecycle," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000643, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. Innes, Robert D., 1990. "Limited liability and incentive contracting with ex-ante action choices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 45-67, October.
    12. Avio, Kenneth L, 1974. "On the Effects of Statutory Interest Rate Ceilings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(5), pages 1383-1395, December.
    13. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    14. Peterson, Richard L, 1983. "Usury Laws and Consumer Credit: A Note," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 38(4), pages 1299-1304, September.
    15. Maurice B. Goudzwaard, 1968. "Price Ceilings And Credit Rationing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 177-185, March.
    16. Barro, Robert J, 1976. "The Loan Market, Collateral, and Rates of Interest," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 8(4), pages 439-456, November.
    17. Williamson, Stephen D., 1986. "Costly monitoring, financial intermediation, and equilibrium credit rationing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 159-179, September.
    18. Dwight M. Jaffee & Thomas Russell, 1976. "Imperfect Information, Uncertainty, and Credit Rationing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 651-666.
    19. Crafton, Steven M, 1980. "An Empirical Test of the Effect of Usury Laws," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(1), pages 135-145, April.
    20. Shay, Robert P, 1970. "Factors Affecting Price, Volume and Credit Risk in the Consumer Finance Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 503-515, May.
    21. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    22. Douglas W. Diamond, 1984. "Financial Intermediation and Delegated Monitoring," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(3), pages 393-414.
    23. Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
    24. Donato Masciandaro, 2001. "In Offense of Usury Laws: Microfoundations of Illegal Credit Contracts," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 193-215, November.
    25. Joseph Persky, 2007. "Retrospectives: From Usury to Interest," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 227-236, Winter.
    26. de Mesa, David & Webb, David C., 1992. "Efficient credit rationing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1277-1290, August.
    27. Michael A. Stegman, 2007. "Payday Lending," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 169-190, Winter.
    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. Giuseppe Coco & David De Meza, 2009. "In Defense of Usury Laws," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1691-1703, December.
    2. Doris Neuberger & Udo Reifner, 2020. "Systemic Usury and the European Consumer Credit Directive," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 89(1), pages 115-132.
    3. Guimarães, Bernardo de Vasconcellos & Salama, Bruno Meyerhof, 2017. "Contingent judicial deference: theory and application to usury laws," Textos para discussão 440, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    4. Lutz G. Arnold & Johannes Reeder & Stefanie Trepl, 2014. "Single-name Credit Risk, Portfolio Risk and Credit Rationing," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(322), pages 311-328, April.
    5. Murizah Osman Salleh & Aziz Jaafar & M. Shahid Ebrahim, 2011. "The Inhibition of Usury (Riba An-Nasi'ah) and the Economic Underdevelopment of the Muslim World," Working Papers 11002, Bangor Business School, Prifysgol Bangor University (Cymru / Wales).
    6. Michel Bellet, 2011. "Saint-Simonism and Utilitarianism : the history of a paradox. Bentham’s Defence of Usury under Saint-Amand Bazard’s Interpretation," Working Papers 1135, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    7. de Meza, David & Reito, Francesco, 2019. "Too Little Lending: A Problem of Symmetric Information," MPRA Paper 93700, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Tuomas Takalo, 2019. "Regulation of short-term consumer credits," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(4), pages 348-354, December.
    9. Ryszard Kowalski & Grzegorz Wałęga, 2022. "Regulation of Usury: Justification, Consequences, and Some Lessons from Polish Experience," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 57-73.
    10. Michel Bellet, 2011. "Saint-Simonism and Utilitarianism: the history of a paradox. Bentham's Defence of Usury under Saint-Amand Bazard's Interpretation," Working Papers halshs-00654847, HAL.
    11. Robert Mayer, 2013. "When and Why Usury Should be Prohibited," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 513-527, September.
    12. Guimaraesy, Bernardo & Meyerhof Salama, Bruno, 2017. "Contingent judicial deference: theory and application to usury laws," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86146, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    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. Gerhard Clemenz & Mona Ritthaler, 1992. "Credit markets with asymmetric information : a survey," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 12-26, Spring.
    2. repec:bla:scotjp:v:49:y:2002:i:2:p:162-95 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Attar, Andrea & Campioni, Eloisa, 2003. "Costly state verification and debt contracts: a critical resume," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 315-343, December.
    4. Gersbach, Hans & Uhlig, Harald, 2006. "Debt contracts and collapse as competition phenomena," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 556-574, October.
    5. Ryszard Kowalski & Grzegorz Wałęga, 2022. "Regulation of Usury: Justification, Consequences, and Some Lessons from Polish Experience," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 57-73.
    6. Berger, Allen N. & Espinosa-Vega, Marco A. & Frame, W. Scott & Miller, Nathan H., 2011. "Why do borrowers pledge collateral? New empirical evidence on the role of asymmetric information," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 55-70, January.
    7. Longhofer, Stanley D., 1997. "Absolute Priority Rule Violations, Credit Rationing, and Efficiency," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 249-267, July.
    8. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    9. Bougheas, Spiros & Mizen, Paul & Yalcin, Cihan, 2006. "Access to external finance: Theory and evidence on the impact of monetary policy and firm-specific characteristics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 199-227, January.
    10. Choi, Dong Beom & Eisenbach, Thomas M. & Yorulmazer, Tanju, 2021. "Watering a lemon tree: Heterogeneous risk taking and monetary policy transmission," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    11. Ying Yan, 1997. "Credit rationing, bankruptcy cost, and the optimal debt contract for small business," Working Papers (Old Series) 9702, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    12. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Yuliy Sannikov, 2012. "Macroeconomics with Financial Frictions: A Survey," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000384, David K. Levine.
    13. Robert Mayer, 2013. "When and Why Usury Should be Prohibited," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 513-527, September.
    14. Stanley D. Longhofer, 1997. "Absolute priority rule violations, credit rationing, and efficiency," Working Papers (Old Series) 9710, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    15. Ozan Güler & Mike Mariathasan & Klaas Mulier & Nejat G. Okatan, 2021. "The real effects of banks' corporate credit supply: A literature review," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1252-1285, July.
    16. Ying Yan, 1996. "Credit Rationing, Bankruptcy Cost, and Optimal Debt Contract for Small Business," Finance 9612003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2022. "Financial Intermediation and the Economy," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2022-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    18. ATTAR, Andréa, 2003. "Financial contracting along the business cycle," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003069, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    19. Manasa Gopal, 2021. "How Collateral Affects Small Business Lending: The Role of Lender Specialization," Working Papers 21-22, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    20. Iris Claus & Arthur Grimes, 2003. "Asymmetric Information, Financial Intermediation and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism: A Critical Review," Treasury Working Paper Series 03/19, New Zealand Treasury.
    21. Robin Boadway & Motohiro Sato & Jean-Francois Tremblay, 2015. "Cash-flow business taxation revisited: bankruptcy, risk aversion and asymmetric information," Working Papers 1531, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)

    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:wly:jmoncb:v:41:y:2009:i:8:p:1691-1703. 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: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-2879 .

    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.