Do Consumers Choose the Right Credit Contracts?

The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Forthcoming

31 Pages Posted: 11 Aug 2014 Last revised: 19 Mar 2015

See all articles by Sumit Agarwal

Sumit Agarwal

National University of Singapore

Souphala Chomsisengphet

Government of the United States of America - Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)

Chunlin Liu

University of Nevada, Reno - College of Business

Nicholas S. Souleles

University of Pennsylvania - Finance Department; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 18, 2015

Abstract

We analyze an experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank that offered consumers a choice between two credit card contracts, one with an annual fee but a lower interest rate and one with no annual fee but a higher interest rate. We find that on average consumers chose the credit contract that minimizes their costs. A substantial fraction of consumers (about 40%) still chose the suboptimal contract. Nonetheless, the probability of choosing the suboptimal contract declines with the dollar magnitude of the potential error, and consumers with larger errors are more likely to subsequently switch to the optimal contract.

Keywords: consumption, borrowing, debt, balance sheets, consumer credit, credit cards, banking

JEL Classification: G11, G21, E21, E51

Suggested Citation

Agarwal, Sumit and Chomsisengphet, Souphala and Liu, Chunlin and Souleles, Nicholas S., Do Consumers Choose the Right Credit Contracts? (March 18, 2015). The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Forthcoming , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2478170 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2478170

Sumit Agarwal

National University of Singapore ( email )

15 Kent Ridge Drive
Singapore, 117592
Singapore
8118 9025 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.ushakrisna.com

Souphala Chomsisengphet

Government of the United States of America - Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) ( email )

400 7th Street SW
Washington, DC 20219
United States

Chunlin Liu (Contact Author)

University of Nevada, Reno - College of Business ( email )

University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, NV 89557-0016
United States

Nicholas S. Souleles

University of Pennsylvania - Finance Department ( email )

The Wharton School
3620 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States
215-898-9466 (Phone)
215-898-6200 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://finance.wharton.upenn.edu/~souleles

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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