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Rediscovering Usury: An Argument For Legal Controls On Credit Card Interest Rates, Vincent D. Rougeau

Journal Articles

This article explores the specific question of setting a legal maximum for credit card interest rates. There has been extensive discussion in the popular press of the explosion of credit card use and the extraordinarily high interest rates people are willing to pay, through various fees and interest charges, to use them. Classic free-market economic arguments have been used to prevent the imposition of a federal cap on credit card interest rates, but there is strong evidence that economic models inadequately explain the credit card market and that a lack of interest rate controls has produced a dramatic transfer of …