Payday lending: new research and the big question

John Caskey

No 10-32, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Abstract: Payday lending is controversial. In the states that allow it, payday lenders make cash loans that are typically for $500 or less that the borrower must repay or renew on his or her next payday. The finance charge for the loan is usually 15 to 20 percent of the amount advanced, so for a typical two-week loan the annual percentage interest rate is about 400 percent. In this article, the author briefly describes the payday lending business and explains why it presents challenging public policy issues. The heart of this article, however, surveys recent research that attempts to answer what the author calls the \"big question,\" one that is fundamental to the public policy dispute: Do payday lenders, on net, exacerbate or relieve customers' financial difficulties?

Keywords: Payday loans; Public policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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