“信用卡：1970至2000年间的使用情况和消费者态度”外文翻译资料

Percent

消费信贷总额

20

15

消费者非循环信贷

10

消费者循环信贷

5

1959

1967

1975

1983

1991

1999

信用卡：使用与消费者态度, 1970–2000

625

1. 美国家庭信用卡流行率，选定年份, 1970– 98

百分比

条款

1970

1977

1983

1989

1995

1998

有一张卡片

51

63

65

70

74

73

任何卡1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

零售商店卡 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45 ²

54

58

61

58

50

银行卡 ³ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

38

43

56

66

68

在最近的付款后有一张有余额的卡片

22

34

37

40

44

剩余内容已隐藏，支付完成后下载完整资料

Credit Cards: Use and Consumer Attitudes, 1970–2000

Thomas A. Durkin, of the Boardrsquo;s Division of Research and Statistics, prepared this article. Nicole Price provided research assistance.

A notable change in consumer financial services over the past few decades has been the growth of the use of credit cards, both for payments and as sources of revolving credit. From modest origins in the 1950s as a convenient way for the relatively well-to-do to settle restaurant and department store purchases with-out carrying cash, credit cards have become a ubiqui-tous financial product held by households in all eco-nomic strata.

In modern commerce, credit cards (along with debit cards) serve as a payment device in lieu of cash or checks for millions of routine purchases as well as for many transactions that would otherwise be incon-venient, or perhaps impossible (for example, making retail purchases by telephone or over the Internet). Credit cards have also become the primary source of unsecured open-end revolving credit, and they have largely replaced the installment-purchase plans that were important to the sales volume at many retail stores in earlier decades.

Along with most major societal changes come questions about whether the trend is beneficial or detrimental (or somewhere in between), and the rise of plastic cards for payments and open-end credit is no exception. Credit cards certainly are widely used and accepted by the public. But they have also raised concerns in two areas: (1) whether consumers fully understand the costs and implications of using credit cards (the consumer information–consumer understanding concern) and (2) whether credit cards have encouraged widespread overindebtedness, particularly among those least able to pay (the indebtedness–financial distress concern). The two issues are related, because one result of lack of under-standing may be overindebtedness. Both issues remain prominent in public discourse, as debt and personal bankruptcy levels have increased over the decades and media reports of confused consumers have multiplied.

Although one can usually find anecdotes to illus-trate a point—consumers who are unaware of the

costs of credit cards, for instance, or consumers who overspend because of the wide availability of credit— such examples can never lead to a definitive under-standing of issues having broad social or economic impact. Statistically representative surveys can con-tribute to a more complete understanding of consum-ersrsquo; experiences. Taken together, such surveys can serve as a status report on the use of credit cards some fifty years after their introduction. This article brings to the discussion some survey evidence on the use of credit cards in the United States. It begins with an examination of long-term trends in consumer indebtedness, with attention to the growth of card-based credit. It then moves to an exploration of the consumer information–consumer understanding issue, with emphasis on consumersrsquo; attitudes toward credit cards and their knowledge of costs.

CREDIT CARDS AND INDEBTEDNESS

The Federal Reserve Board collects data on amounts of consumer credit outstanding, including amounts of revolving consumer credit, most of which is gener-ated by credit cards.¹ Total (nonmortgage) consumer credit outstanding increased from $119 billion at year-end 1968 to $1,456 billion in June 2000 (in current dollars, not seasonally adjusted), while the revolving component grew from $2 billion to about $626 billion over the same period. Because popula-tion, income, employment, prices, and nearly every other economic indicator also rose over the period, the growth of consumer credit is often put in perspec-tive by comparing it with the growth of consumersrsquo; income.

Total (nonmortgage) consumer credit outstanding (revolving and nonrevolving forms combined) has

1. Consumer credit covers most short- and intermediate-term credit extended to individuals. It includes revolving credit (credit card credit and balances outstanding on unsecured revolving lines of credit) and nonrevolving credit (such as secured and unsecured credit for auto-mobiles, mobile homes, trailers, durable goods, vacations, and other purposes). Consumer credit excludes loans secured by real estate (such as mortgage loans, home equity loans, and home equity lines of credit).

624 Federal Reserve Bulletin September 2000

1. Consumer credit outstanding as a proportion of disposable personal income, 1956– 99

SOURCE. Federal Reserve Board and Bureau of Economic Analysis.

grown at approximately the same pace as disposable personal income over the past generation, although with noticeably more cyclicality. Since the mid-1960s, total consumer credit outstanding relative to this measure of income has fl uctuated in a relatively narrow range of about 16 percent to 17 percent dur-ing or following recession periods to about 18 per-cent to 21 percent near business-cycle highpoints (chart 1).

The revolving component of consumer

剩余内容已隐藏，支付完成后下载完整资料

资料编号：[280536]，资料为PDF文档或Word文档，PDF文档可免费转换为Word