Recent developments in consumer credit and payments

On September 22-23, 2011, the Research Department and the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia held their sixth joint conference to present and discuss the latest research on consumer credit and payments. Eighty-four participants attended the conference, which included seven research papers on the role of home equity in the decision to move to a new job; credit supply and house prices; legally mandated removal of credit remarks; policies to prevent mortgage default; adoption and use of payment instruments by U.S. consumers; liquidity constraints and consumer bankruptcy; and credit supply to bankrupt consumers. In this article, Mitchell Berlin summarizes the papers presented at the conference.
In her welcoming remarks, Loretta Mester, executive vice president and director of research at the Philadelphia Fed, noted that the recent financial crisis has uncovered a range of new issues [...]