Susan Payne Carter

The Pawn Industry and Its Customers: The United States and Europe

As humankind’s oldest financial institution, pawnbroking has served the financial needs of low-income families for centuries. Recently, and especially in the last five years, an increasing number of consumers have relied on pawnbrokers to help them meet daily financial needs. Seven percent of all U.S. and four percent of all Swedish households have used pawn credit at one time or another. Despite the general public’s increased interest in the pawn industry, evidenced by the popularity of reality television shows like “Pawn Stars” and “Hard Core Pawn,” economists have paid surprisingly little attention to the pawnbroking industry and pawnshop borrowers. We start by reviewing the history of pawn credit and the sparse economic literature on pawnbroking, and then present unique U.S. transaction data and Swedish register data to, first, show aggregate trends, and, second, shed light on the social and financial background of pawnshop borrowers and their behavior within the pawnbroking industry in both countries. We find that the pawnbroking industry and pawnshop borrowers are unexpectedly similar in the United States and Sweden.

Much Ado about Nothing? New Evidence on the Effects of Payday Lending on Military Members

We evaluate the effect that payday loan access has on credit and labor market outcomes of individuals in the U.S. Army. Using the conditional random assignment of service members to different locations, we employ three identification strategies: cross-sectional variation in state policies, within-term variation in payday lending access, and a difference-in-difference analysis using the national Military Lending Act. We find few adverse effects of payday loan access on service members when using any of these methods, even when we examine dozens of subsamples that explore potential differential treatment effects.

Balancing act: new evidence and a discussion of the theory on the rationality and behavioral anomalies of choice in credit markets

An emerging literature explores how people choose between and use forms of consumer credit. In their chapter, Bos, Carter, and Skiba reflect on the existing literature that analyzes the choice between traditional forms of credit and non-traditional forms of credit such as pawnshop loans and payday loans. The authors add to this literature by introducing new data on observed choices of customers switching to pawnshop loans when payday loans are not available. They bring together these facts to discuss the behavioral economics of choice across these credit markets. They outline the relevant behavioral economics theory, which they hope will inform regulators’ choices in governing alterative credit markets.