Coco, Giuseppe and de Meza, David (2009) In defense of usury laws. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 41 (8). pp. 1691-1703. ISSN 0022-2879
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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(IS... |
| Additional Information: | © 2009 The Ohio State University |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | credit, usury law, interest rate caps, moral hazard |
| Library of Congress subject classification: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory |
| Sets: | Research centres and groups > Managerial Economics and Strategy Group Departments > Management Collections > Economists Online |
| Rights: | http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/rights/LSERO.htm |
| URL: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/36071/ |
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