A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score

Satyajit Chatterjee, P. Dean Corbae, Kyle Dempsey () and José-Víctor Ríos-Rull
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: José-Víctor Ríos-Rull

No 770, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Abstract: What is the role of credit scores in credit markets? We argue that it is a stand in for a market assessment of a person's unobservable type (which here we take to be patience). We pose a model of persistent hidden types where observable actions shape the public assessment of a person's type via Bayesian updating. We show how dynamic reputation can incentivize repayment without monetary costs of default beyond the administrative cost of filing for bankruptcy. Importantly we show how an economy with credit scores implements the same equilibrium allocation. We estimate the model using both credit market data and the evolution of individual's credit scores. We find a 3% difference in patience in almost equally sized groups in the population with significant turnover and a shift towards becoming more patient with age. If tracking of individual credit actions is outlawed, the benefits of bankruptcy forgiveness are outweighed by the higher interest rates associated with lower incentives to repay.

Keywords: Credit scores; Unsecured consumer credit; Bankruptcy; Persistent private information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 E21 G51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 70
Date: 2020-08-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-mac
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score (2023)
Working Paper: A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score (2020)
Working Paper: A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score (2020)
Working Paper: A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedmwp:88517

DOI: 10.21034/wp.770

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