Description: In Creditworthy, Josh Lauer explores the evolution of credit reporting from from an industry that relied on personal knowledge to the modern consumer data industry. He highlights the role that commercial surveillance has played in monitoring Americans' economic lives.
Review Quotes: Who deserves credit? Who is a prime borrower, and who is subprime? The stakes of these questions could not be higher: loans are essential to the education, transport, and housing of millions. Lauer has written a compelling history of how businesses assess creditworthiness, from nineteenth-century trade associations to contemporary data science mavens. Lucid and packed with fascinating detail, Creditworthy is an essential guide to the intersection of finance and surveillance.--Frank Pasquale, University of Maryland