What Do They Actually Pay? The True Cost Of Borrowing In The Payday Lending Industry

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ABSTRACT

In 2011 the payday loan industry is estimated to have lent $32 billion, collecting $7 billion in interest and fees (Dougherty, Carter, "Consumer Bureau Focuses on Payday Lending", Bloomberg Business Week, January 19 2012). The peak of payday lending came in the past decade but has started declining (Alp er, Alexandria, "US Payday Lenders Point Fingers to Blunt Crackdown", Reuters, January 20, 2012) with increased regulation and enforcement. In the case of regulation, the most common policies are caps on interest rates charged to borrowers; such caps motivate this paper. Our hypothesis contends that the effective interest rate after accounting for defaults and late payments is significantly less than the posted interest rate.

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