Calvin’s Restrictions on Interest: Guidelines for the Credit Crisis

Abstract

Calvin’s view on the legitimacy of interest has had a great impact on the economic development of Western society. Although Calvin took a fundamentally positive attitude to interest, he also proposed several restrictions on the charging of interest. In this article, we investigate the relevance of these restrictions to the current credit crisis. We find that each of them provides a relevant interpretation of what went wrong in the build up of the credit crisis and gives directions to improve policies of banks and governments as well.

Keywords: Banking sector, Bible, bonus system, Calvin, credit crisis, golden rule, reciprocity, government regulation, restriction on charging interest

JEL Classification: B31, B59, G01, G21, G31, Z12