Terry Kibbe of the Consumers Rights League has a guest piece today in the Denver Post that picks up on recent research by Don Morgan of the NY Federal Reserve. 

Money quote: ”Morgan also questioned the validity of the research from the Center for Responsible Lending saying the Center ‘overstated the number of problem borrowers.’ He noted that banning payday loans actually leads to more people bouncing checks, filing for bankruptcy and fighting with collectors. After payday loans in Georgia were banned in 2004, Morgan found, “bounced checks in the Fed processing center in Atlanta jumped by 1.2 million, a 13% increase.”

The National  Center for Policy Analysis, a think tank out of Dallas, is talking about the Dan Morgan payday lending study on its web site.   The study, which will be published soon, will have a major impact on this debate.   It will be an interesting contrast: a peer reviewed, published study by a respected economist (Morgan) versus the unreviewed, unpublished and sloppy research of the Center for Responsible Lending and other critics.