Central banks such as the Federal Reserve (Fed) and European Central Bank
(ECB) does consider the role of consumer credit in their policy decisions (see
ECB, 2004; Bernanke, 2006). There is a widespread consensus among economists
and policy-makers that consumer credit is strongly linked to output and
inflation. There are a number of factors that consumers consider when making
borrowing decisions. For the Fed to precisely measure and monitor the consumer
borrowing, there is a need to identify the factors that influence consumer
borrowing and decisions. Consumer spending is the largest share of GDP in the
United States. and has been a key driver of economic growth the country has
experienced since 1990s. Consumer borrowing has always played a strong part
in stimulating consumption spending (Paradiso et al., 2014); in addition it also
has links to consumer debt accumulation. As a proportion of personal income,
consumer credit has more than doubled during the postwar period, with particularly
sharp and sustained increases occurring in the 1980s (see figure 1, Ludvigson,
1999). In spite of the attention paid to movements in consumer credit in
the press and the Wall Street, the determinants and effects of growth in consumer
credit have not been a major focus of researchers; hence there has been
limited research on the determinants of consumer credit in an economy.