Nicola Jentzsch Knihy

The book delves into the economics and regulation surrounding financial privacy, focusing on credit reporting agencies that handle sensitive consumer data across various industries. It offers a comparative analysis of credit reporting systems in the US and the EU, examining both public credit registers and private agencies. The author employs theories related to information, privacy, and market competition to explore the historical context and institutional frameworks of credit reporting. Additionally, it evaluates the economic impact of credit reporting on credit markets.

Credit reporting agencies collect and compile highly sensitive information on the millions of consumers in credit markets throughout the world and also increasingly across a variety of industries, such as insurance, retail and telecommunications. In this revised edition, Nicola Jentzsch provides an in-depth analysis of the economics and regulation of financial privacy and a comparative overview of credit reporting systems in the US and the 27 member states of the European Union. She offers an authoritative evaluation of the design and functioning of dual systems consisting of public credit registers and private credit reporting agencies. Drawing on theories of information and privacy as well as competition in information markets, she discusses the history and institutions of credit reporting. Finally, on an empirical level, the book assesses the economic effects of credit reporting on credit markets.

This book provides the first in-depth analysis of the topic, offering an international comparison of credit reporting systems. Coverage includes competition in information markets, the microeconomics of information and privacy, and economic incentives to disclose or to conceal information. The book examines the history of credit reporting agencies and the regulation of privacy and credit reporting around the world. Finally, it surveys the effects of credit reporting in credit markets worldwide.