【经济学人】今天你贷款了吗？|2017.04.08|总第864期

IN MAY 2013 Gloria James borrowed $200 from Loan Till Payday, a lender near her home in Wilmington, Delaware. Rather than take out a one- or two-month loan for a $100 fee, as she had done several times before, she was offered a one-year loan that would set her back $1,620 in interest, equivalent to an annual rate of 838%. Ms James, a housekeeper making $12 an hour, agreed to the high-interest loan but quickly fell behind on her payments. After filing a lawsuit in federal court, a Delaware judge ruled that the loan in question was not only illegal but “unconscionable”.
2013年5月，格洛丽亚詹姆斯向她家附近的Loill Till发薪日贷款处（纽约州特拉华州威尔明顿市的一名贷款处）借了 200美元。然而不像她之前几次借款一样，借贷1个月或者2个月，支付100美元的费用，她这次贷款时间为期一年，得偿还1620美元的利息，也就是说年利率为838%。詹姆斯是一名管家，每小时可以挣12美元，她接受了高利贷，但她很快无法用自己的薪资偿还贷款。朝联邦法院起诉后，特拉华州的一名法官宣判该笔有待商榷的贷款非法且不合理。

Her story is remarkably common. Americans who live pay cheque to pay cheque have few places to turn when they are in financial distress. Many rely on high-interest payday loans to stay afloat. But government efforts to crack down on the $40bn industry may be having an effect.

她的故事非常普遍。用以票养票的方式生活的美国人遇到经济困难时，几乎没有回旋的余地。许多人依靠高利息发薪日贷款来维持生计。但政府正在着力打击这个400亿美元的产业，可能会对它产生影响。

• conjecture：推测，猜想。

Roughly 2.5m American households, about one in 50, use payday loans each year, according to government statistics. The typical loan is $350, lasts two weeks, and costs $15 for each $100 borrowed. Although payday loans are marketed as a source of short-term cash to be used in financial emergencies, they are often used to meet chronic budget shortfalls—in 2015 more borrowers in California took out ten payday loans than took out one.（读者试译句） Critics say the industry dupes its vulnerable customers into paying high fees and interest rates. And yet surveys show its customers are mostly satisfied, because payday loans are easy and convenient.
根据官方统计，差不多250万的美国家庭中，几乎每50个中有一个每年都用发薪日贷款。代表性贷款方式是350美元，持续两周，每笔$ 100的借款费用为15美元。虽然发薪日贷款作为短期现金来源被用作金融紧急情况，但它们常常用于应付长期预算短缺 - 在2015年，加利福尼亚州的更多借款人选择10个工资日贷款，而不是1个工资日贷款。批评者们认为这个行业欺负其弱势的客户支付高额的费用和利息。而调查显示，其客户大多满意，因为发薪日贷款方便快捷

• Dupe 欺骗; 愚弄
  

Regulation of payday lending in America has historically been the responsibility of states. Over a dozen use interest-rate caps to, in effect, ban payday loans. But lenders can get around these laws by registering as “credit service organisations”, relocating to other states, or even working with Native American tribes to claim sovereign immunity.

美国工资日贷款的管理历来是国家负责的。实际上，超过12个州利用利率上限来禁止发薪日贷款。但贷款人可以通过注册为“信用服务组织”，迁移到其他州，甚至与美洲土著部落一起申请主权豁免权来避开这些法律。

At the federal level, Congress passed the Military Lending Act in 2006, capping loan rates to service members at 36%. More recently, the Department of Justice launched “Operation Choke Point”, an effort to press banks into severing ties with businesses at risk of money-laundering, payday lenders among them. But the real crackdown on payday lending could come if the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), a watchdog, implements new regulations on high-interest loans. The rules include underwriting standards and other restrictions designed to keep borrowers out of debt; the CFPB estimates that they could reduce payday-loan volumes by more than 80%.

2006年，在联邦一级的国会上通过了“军事贷款法”，限制对军人的贷款利率上限为 36％。最近，司法部发起了“瓶颈行动”， 旨在强迫银行与有洗钱风险的公司断绝关系，薪资贷款（公司）就包括其中。但是，如果监管机构——消费者金融保护局（CFPB）在高利息贷款上实施新规定，对发薪日贷款真正的打击可能会到来。这些规则包括承保标准和其他旨在保证借款人还清债务的限制;CFPB估计可以将发薪日贷款额度减少80％以上。

• service members ：军人

The threat of regulation may already have had an effect. The Centre for Financial Services Innovation, a non-profit group, reckons that payday-loan volumes have fallen by 18% since 2014; revenues have dropped by 30%. During the first nine months of 2016, lenders shut more than 500 stores and total employment in the industry fell by 3,600, or 3.5%. To avoid the new rules, lenders are shifting away from lump-sum payday loans toward instalment loans, which give borrowers more time to get back on their feet.
监管的威胁可能已经产生了影响。非营利组织金融服务创新中心认为，自2014年以来，工资日贷款量下降了18％收入利润下降了30％。在2016年前九个月，关闭了500多家贷款点，该行业的就业总额下降了3600个，即下降了3.5％。为了避免这个新的法规，贷款人正从一次总付发放日贷款转向分期贷款，这种类型的贷款给借款人更多的时间还清他们的贷款。

It would be premature to celebrate the demise of payday lenders. The Trump administration is likely to block the CFPB’s new regulations. And even if the rules are pushed through, consumers may not be better off. Academic research on payday-lending regulation is mixed, with some studies showing benefits, others showing costs, and still others finding no consumer-welfare effects at all. A forthcoming paper by two economists at West Point concludes that the Military Lending Act yielded “no significant benefits to service members”.
庆祝发薪日贷款的消亡还为时过早。特朗普政府很可能阻碍消费者金融保护局的新规定。甚至如果规则通过，消费者们并不会过得更好。关于发薪日贷款管理的学术研究观点是复杂的，一些研究显示其有益，有些则显示损害，还有一些研究没有发现对消费者福利的影响。西点军校的两位经济学家即将出版的论文得出结论，“军事借贷法”对军人来说没有重大好处。

翻译 ▍iron 我拿青春赌明天

审核 ▍竞风之翼

编辑 ▍毛毛