Our PhD social scientists design and conduct foundational, policy-relevant research on consumer finance and household behavior.
For preliminary research and working papers, find the Office of Research’s independent papers on SSRN.
We collect data to monitor consumer credit market conditions.
This third COVID-19 Special Issue Brief describes the characteristics of mortgage borrowers, including demographics, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report focuses on borrowers with loans that are in forbearance or delinquent as reported through March 2021.
A new analysis examines the early impact of COVID-19 on consumers’ finances, finding that, in general, they were more able to stay on top of finances in June 2020 than June 2019.
The Office of Research released a research brief summarizing the results of an online experiment exploring how the amount of available savings may influence decisions about using savings to pay down credit card debt.
This report explores the prevalence of actual payment information in consumer credit reporting.
This Data Point provides new information about the types of changes that occur during the mortgage origination process.
The Office of Research released a research brief that explores consumers’ perceived financial preparedness, saving habits, and financial security.
This second COVID-19 Special Issue Brief describes trends in delinquency rates, payment assistance, credit access, and account balance measures with a focus on the period since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The goal of this article is to help the public become more familiar with the new and revised data points in the 2019 HMDA data and to provide some initial observations about the nation’s mortgage market in 2019 using those new and revised data points. As in last year’s article, the focus of this article is on cross-sectional analyses, i.e. using the data contained in one year’s loan application registrar (LAR) to explore various patterns and relationships between different data fields to provide some initial observations.
The Office of Research released a report that synthesizes the rigorous research of programs and strategies aiming to help consumers achieve greater liquid savings.
This report summarizes the initial results from the Making Ends Meet survey, a nationally representative survey of adults with a credit record developed by the CFPB’s Office of Research.
Quarterly consumer credit trends reports focus on a specific consumer financial product or issue using a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of de-identified credit records maintained by a nationwide consumer reporting agency.
2019 HMDA Mortgage Market Activity and Trends summarizes the historical data points in the 2019 HMDA data, as well as recent trends in mortgage and housing markets.
This report uses the Bureau’s Consumer Credit Panel to study the early effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on credit applications overall, by credit score group, and across the states.
Between May and September 2019, the CFPB conducted a large-scale online survey experiment designed to test several versions of disclosures to support understanding of time-barred debt and revival. The results of the survey experiment are summarized in this report.
In September 2019, the CFPB engaged ICF International, Inc., to launch a large-scale online survey experiment designed to test several versions of disclosures to support understanding of time-barred debt and revival. ICF produced this report describing the methodology of this survey experiment, including sampling, response rates, and question development.
This Data Point article tracks the evolution of small business lending before, during and following the Great Recession.
Quarterly consumer credit trends reports focus on a specific consumer financial product or issue using a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of de-identified credit records maintained by a nationwide consumer reporting agency.
Our data point reports are prepared by our Office of Research to provide an evidence-based perspective on consumer financial markets, consumer behavior, and regulations to inform the public discourse.
This fourteenth data point compares borrower characteristics at mortgage servicers of different sizes and explores the role servicers of each size play in the mortgage market.
Quarterly consumer credit trends reports focus on a specific consumer financial product or issue using a longitudinal, nationally-representative sample of de-identified credit records maintained by a nationwide credit reporting company.
This report presents results from a joint research study between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Credit Karma. The purpose of the study is to examine how consumers’ subjective financial well-being relates to objective measures of consumers’ financial health, specifically, consumers’ credit report characteristics. The study also seeks to relate consumers’ subjective financial well-being to consumers’ engagement with financial information through educational tools.
A large study exploring tax-time saving found that early messaging and small incentives were effective at encouraging some customers to save using a savings feature on their prepaid card.
This data point article introduces the new and revised data points in the 2018 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data.
This data point article summarizes the historical data points 2018 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data, as well as recent trends in mortgage and housing markets.
This eleventh data point examines how often credit card balances are revolved on an account, or borrowed, how long balances are revolved, and how regularly they are paid down.
