Reading the fine printinformation disclosure in the Brazilian credit card market

Resumo

Consumer credit regulations usually require that lenders disclose interest rates. However, in the absence of specific prominence requirements, lenders can conceal the interest rate in the fine print while still complying with the law. I examine the effect of such a strategy using a field experiment in Brazil in which a credit card company offered their clients payment plans to pay off their balances. Using randomized contract interest rates and the degree of rate disclosure, I show that most clients are rate sensitive, whether or not rates are prominently disclosed. The elasticity of payment plan enrollment with respect to the interest rate ranges from .00711 to .00880. High-risk clients are an exception; these clients are rate sensitive only when disclosure is prominent. I also show that clients are influenced by nudges that favor longer-term contracts. Conditional on enrollment, the proportion of clients who choose a longer-term contract is 40 percentage points higher when a longer-term contract is featured in the advertisement layout. This effect, however, is weaker when stakes are higher. © 2016 INFORMS.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Artigo científico

Ano

2016

Instituição

INFORMS Inst.for Operations Res.and the Management Sciences

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Inglês

Acesso

Acesso restrito

DOI

10.1287/mnsc.2015.2281

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/25493

Palavras-chave

Consumer financeCredit marketsInformation disclosureLaws and legislationConsumer creditsField experimentLonger-term contractsPercentage pointsRate sensitiveCommerceTaxas de jurosCréditos