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The Impact of Credit Counseling on Subsequent Borrower Behavior
Author(s) -
ELLIEHAUSEN GREGORY,
CHRISTOPHER LUNDQUIST E.,
STATEN MICHAEL E.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of consumer affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1745-6606
pISSN - 0022-0078
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6606.2006.00066.x
Subject(s) - receipt , debt , variety (cybernetics) , credit rating , actuarial science , business , credit score , credit history , psychology , accounting , finance , artificial intelligence , computer science
The study examined the impact of individualized credit counseling delivered to nearly 8,000 consumer clients during 1997. Credit bureau data provided objective measures of credit performance at a variety of margins between 1997 and 2000 for counseled clients, relative to a comparison group of uncounseled borrowers. Receipt of counseling was associated with a positive change in borrower credit profiles. Techniques to control for self‐selection into counseling reveal that much of the improvement was attributable to characteristics unique to consumers who sought counseling. But counseling itself was associated with substantial reductions in debt and account usage, and appeared to provide the greatest benefit to those borrowers who had the least ability to handle credit prior to counseling.