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Counseling and Debt Repayment Plans
A 1993 study of 660 debtors on Debt Management Plans administered by credit counseling agencies found that creditor concessions (reduction or waiver of finance charges and late fees) have a significant, positive impact on the success of the plan.  Debtors for whom finance charges are not waived repay significantly less than debtors with a substantial portion of debt on which finance charges are waived.  The results suggest that both creditors and financially troubled debtors can benefit if creditors jointly exercise forbearance with respect to finance charges.

Credit Insurance
A survey conducted in 1993 of 3,600 borrowers who had been given the opportunity to purchase credit insurance addressed long-standing policy concerns about marketing practices and the need for greater consumer protection.  The survey was designed to determine how frequently consumers experienced excessive or coercive pressure to buy credit insurance and also the frequency with which they bought it while not realizing they had done so.

Credit Reporting
The Center's research on the impact of credit scoring models led to the introduction of special purpose programs into the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.  The Center also conducted a scoring project through a grant from the World Bank that demonstrated the benefit to consumers of comprehensive credit reporting rules, and the costs to consumers of restricting the amount of personal credit history contained in a credit report.

Demand for Credit and Usage Patterns
Various studies of bank card ownership and use patterns, consumers' credit shopping patterns, and segmentation of credit markets have highlighted the relationship between the demand for credit and its price and non-price terms.

Personal Bankruptcy
Three landmark studies of consumers who filed for bankruptcy have built a profile of the bankrupt debtor over time and documented the success with which consumers have re-entered credit markets after bankruptcy.  Personal interviews of 1,200 debtors who filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code during 1981 concluded that about 30 percent of non-mortgage debt discharged in bankruptcy court was actually affordable debt.  An even larger study of 3,800 petitioners who filed for personal bankruptcy in 1996 found that 10-15 percent of consumers utilizing Chapter 7 appeared able to fund Chapter 13 repayment plans and repay a significant portion of their non-mortgage debt over a 5-year period.  A study of consumers who filed for bankruptcy during 1988 found that many were able to obtain new credit within a year of filing for bankruptcy, suggesting that the economic stigma to filing for bankruptcy was lower than many observers had believed.  

Regulation of Pricing in Credit Markets
A 5-year study, conducted through a large grant from the National Science Foundation, measured the effects of rate ceilings on credit markets.  The major findings demonstrated the diversity of adjustments made in the marketplace when restrictive rate ceilings are in effect: the substitution of retail credit for cash credit, restrictions of non-rate loan terms, and the imposition of surcharges and fees for loans and other financial services.  With the removal of some rate ceilings, the competition was sufficient to keep rates in deregulated markets at levels consistent with general market conditions.