The Moral Economy of Debt: Race
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THE MORAL ECONOMY OF DEBT: RACE, ETHNICITY AND PERCEPTIONS OF FAIRNESS IN CREDIT MARKETS FOR THE POOR A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Stephen Charles Nuñez May 2011 © 2011 by Stephen Charles Nunez. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/ry146nb6241 Includes supplemental files: 1. The 12 dissertation tables in excel format. (organized dissertation tables.xls) ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Mark Granovetter, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. David Grusky I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Douglas McAdam Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii Abstract: In this dissertation, I explore the role of values and moral judgments in credit markets. I focus on the frequenting of “fringe banks,” controversial institutions that serve those who have limited access to mainstream credit markets as a result of poverty and/or poor/no credit history. Among other intriguing results, I find compelling evidence that there are persistent statistical differences in payday and pawn loan usage across racial and ethnic groups that cannot be explained by disparities in wealth and credit access. Instead, I argue that they are the result of variations in the perception of the propriety of such loans, variations that have their root in the legacy of racial discrimination in mainstream credit markets in the United States. To make this case, I utilize both quantitative and qualitative data as well as a variety of novel statistical techniques. I analyze cross-site multi-wave survey data collected by The Center for Community Capital, The National Opinion Research Center and The Annie E. Casey Foundation. I strengthen my argument by drawing on excellent focus group data supplied by The Center for Community Capital and The Center for Responsible Lending. This study represents a unique contribution to the sociology of credit and finance and demonstrates the importance of synthesizing structural and cultural approaches to the study of economic activity. iv Acknowledgements: This dissertation was written during a year in which I received support from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation’s, Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship. This generous funding allowed me to devote all my attention to writing, no doubt significantly improving the contents herein. My adviser, Mark Granovetter, revealed that is was necessary to seriously consider culture, structure, and human relationships if one hoped to understand the economy. This insight brought about my transformation from economist to economic sociologist. Without his guidance, this project would not have been possible. I’d like to thank my dissertation committee members, Doug McAdam and David Grusky for their excellent feedback and the time they invested in reading this work. I’d also like to thank Dan McFarland and Xueguang Zhou for acting as “outside” faculty during my dissertation proposal defense. Their insights helped focus this project and ensured a smooth start to the entire endeavor. I owe a debt to the participants of the Stanford Department of Sociology workshops on economic sociology and inequality. The intense, incisive questions and comments I received at these meetings helped to develop and refine the theoretical framework of the project. My conversations with Warner Henson and Lindsay Owens were especially crucial to the maturation of my thoughts on the workings of morality, culture and network structure in credit and financial markets. Support from family and friends was crucial during the ordeal that is graduate school. Sakiko Okumoto helped me through the early years as I struggled to identify my interests and define my eventual contribution to the field. My brother, Mark and sister, Lisa, were always there to offer encouragement when my morale was low. My mother, Linda, believed in me and continued to offer her love and guidance, even though she never quite understood why her son was so insistent on a PhD in sociology. Finally, I owe an intellectual debt to E.P. Thompson who coined the term, “moral economy,” and whose seminal work, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” served as the original inspiration for this dissertation. v Table of Contents: 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………....1 2. Chapter 1: Fringe Banking………………………………………………………...6 3. Chapter 2: Moral Economy………………………………………………………15 4. Chapter 3: Data and Methods……………………………………………………35 5. Chapter 4: Models of Pawnshop Usage………………………………………….54 6. Chapter 5: Models of Payday Loan Usage………………………………………72 7. Chapter 6: Latent Class and Cluster Analysis of Emergency Strategies……….109 8. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...122 9. References………………………………………………………………………125 vi List of Tables: 1. Pawnshop Usage in Previous 24 Month Period (NCFSS, dichotomous, county)……………………………………………………...54 2. Pawnshop Usage in Previous 24 Month Period (NCFSS, dichotomous, zip code)…………………………………………………….54 3. Pawnshop Usage in Previous 24 Month Period (NCFSS discrete, continuous)………………………………………………………..58 4. Pawnshop Usage in Previous 12 Month Period (AECF, dichotomous, wave 1)……………………………………………………….60 5. Pawnshop Usage in Previous 12 Month Period (AECF, dichotomous, wave 2)……………………………………………………….60 6. Payday Loan Usage in Previous 24 Month Period (NCFSS, dichotomous, county)……………………………………………………...72 7. Payday Loan Usage in Previous 24 Month Period (NCFSS, dichotomous, zip code)…………………………………………………….72 8. Payday Loan Usage in Previous 24 Month Period (NCFSS categorical)…………………………………………………………………74 9. Payday Loans as Primary Emergency Support Source (AECF)……………………………………………………………………………….75 10. Payday Loans as Part of Emergency Strategy (AECF wave 1)………………………………………………………………………75 11. Payday Loans as Part of Emergency Strategy (AECF wave 2)………………………………………………………………………75 12. Multinomial Logistic Analysis of Emergency Strategies (AECF, wave 2)…………………………………………………………………….115 vii Introduction: Even before the credit crisis of 2008 had run its course, members of the media and government had begun to assign blame. Not surprisingly, the identified culprits varied according to the political ideology of the accuser. Thus, free market advocates placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of government for maintaining regulations and subsidized lending programs (e.g. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac) that distorted incentives and burdened businesses. Some pinned additional responsibility on profligate consumers who knowingly borrowed above and beyond their means. Conversely, liberals focused their ire on greedy, predatory lenders who charged exorbitant interest rates and took advantage of the financial ignorance of the poor, minorities, and immigrants. Liberals further argued that government failed to enact and enforce necessary regulations, pointing to the S.E.C. as a classic, “captured regulator.” The true causes of the recent financial meltdown are extremely complex. The simplistic villains of the current morality play, with their inflated agency, merely serve as comprehensible stand-ins for what was a systemic structural collapse. Nevertheless, social scientists should take interest in the public discourse on culpability and in the attempts to place and deflect blame. Most obviously, the consensus that emerges, if any, can sway the outcome of elections and dictate the course of public policy for years to come. More subtly, the varying heroes and villains of these crisis stories indicate deep- seated underlying beliefs about both the proper scope of market transactions and the rights and responsibilities of actors within the market, merchants and consumers, creditors and debtors alike. In other words, participants in the world’s most advanced industrial economy are 1 continuing to debate the morality of economic action, a subject that is studied primarily by scholars of, “primitive,” and developing societies. This may be surprising to neoclassical economists who see self-evident virtue in market exchange and the free movement of supply and demand curves. It may be equally surprising to Marxists, substantivists, communitarians and anyone who fears that moral concerns are swept away by the cash nexus of a fully developed market economy. It should not be surprising to sociologists; economic action is a particular form of social action and thus subject to normative constraints as usual. Sociologists have, historically, had little to say about the functioning of morality in the economy in general. This may be because ideas about proper behavior