Review of Economic Studies · 2021 · Hunt Allcott、Joshua J. Kim、Dmitry Taubinsky、Jonathan Zinman
中文摘要
人们常认为，个体可能因偏重当下和/或对自己能多快还清债务过度乐观，而承担过多的高成本债务。我们通过与一家大型发薪日贷款机构开展的一项实验，测量借款人的当下偏重和过度乐观程度。尽管最缺乏经验的四分之一借款人低估了自己未来借款的可能性，但更有经验的其余四分之三借款人的预测平均而言是准确的。这一发现与我们向103位发薪日贷款和行为经济学专家征询得到的先验信念形成鲜明对比：这些专家认为，普通借款人会对摆脱债务抱有高度过度乐观的预期。借款人愿意为一项旨在避免未来借款的实验性激励支付相当可观的溢价；我们表明，这意味着他们认为自己具有时间不一致性。我们利用借款人对自身行为的预测及其对该实验性激励的估值，估计了一个关于当下偏重和天真程度的模型。随后，我们利用该模型研究常见的发薪日贷款监管措施。在我们的模型中，相对于现行监管，禁止发薪日贷款会降低福利，而限制重复借款则可能通过促使借款人更快还款、使还款行为更符合长期偏好来提高福利。
Abstract
Abstract It is often argued that people might take on too much high-cost debt because they are present focused and/or over-optimistic about how soon they will repay. We measure borrowers’ present focus and over-optimism using an experiment with a large payday lender. Although the most inexperienced quartile of borrowers under-estimate their likelihood of future borrowing, the more experienced three quartiles predict correctly on average. This finding contrasts sharply with priors we elicited from 103 payday lending and behavioural economics experts, who believed that the average borrower would be highly overoptimistic about getting out of debt. Borrowers are willing to pay a significant premium for an experimental incentive to avoid future borrowing, which we show implies that they perceive themselves to be time inconsistent. We use borrowers’ predicted behaviour and valuation of the experimental incentive to estimate a model of present focus and naivete. We then use the model to study common payday lending regulations. In our model, banning payday loans reduces welfare relative to existing regulation, while limits on repeat borrowing might increase welfare by inducing faster repayment that is more consistent with long-run preferences.