Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Sep, 2023, Volume 91, Issue 5

A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA18771
p. 1803-1840

Satyajit Chatterjee, Dean Corbae, Kyle Dempsey, José‐Víctor Ríos‐Rull

What is the role of credit scores in credit markets? We argue that it is, in part, the market's assessment of a person's unobservable type, which here we take to be patience. We postulate a model of persistent hidden types where observable actions shape the public assessment of a person's type via Bayesian updating. We show how dynamic reputation can incentivize repayment. Importantly, we show how an economy with credit scores implements the same equilibrium allocation. We estimate the model using both credit market data and the evolution of individuals' credit scores. We conduct counterfactuals to assess how more or less information used in scoring individuals affects outcomes and welfare. If tracking of individual credit actions is outlawed, poor young adults of low type benefit from subsidization by high types despite facing higher interest rates arising from lower dynamic incentives to repay.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score"

Satyajit Chatterjee, Dean Corbae, Kyle Dempsey, and José-Víctor Ríos-Rull

This zip file contains the replication files for the manuscript.

Supplement to "A Quantitative Theory of the Credit Score"

Satyajit Chatterjee, Dean Corbae, Kyle Dempsey, and José-Víctor Ríos-Rull

This online appendix contains material not found within the manuscript.

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