Governments regulate debt collectors to protect consumers from predatory practices. These restrictions may lower repayment, reducing the supply of mainstream credit and increasing demand for alternative credit. Using individual credit record data and a difference-in-differences design comparing consumers in states that tighten restrictions on debt collection to those in neighboring states that do not, I find that restricting collections reduces access to mainstream credit and increases payday borrowing. These findings provide new evidence of substitution between alternative and mainstream credit and point to a trade-off between shielding consumers from certain collection practices and pushing them into higher cost payday lending markets.

中文翻译：

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更少的主流信贷，更多的发薪日借款？来自收债限制的证据

政府对收债员进行监管，以保护消费者免受掠夺性行为的侵害。这些限制可能会降低还款率，减少主流信贷的供应并增加对替代信贷的需求。使用个人信用记录数据和差异设计比较收紧收债限制的州的消费者与没有收紧收债限制的邻州的消费者，我发现限制收债会减少获得主流信贷的机会并增加发薪日借款。这些发现提供了替代信贷和主流信贷之间替代的新证据，并指出了保护消费者免受某些收款行为和将他们推向成本更高的发薪日贷款市场之间的权衡。