How can it be that people and businesses are ever unable to obtain credit? Why do lenders not simply increase the interest rate for high-risk borrowers? And if increased interest rates cant solve the problem, then surely the use of collateral can?As it turns out, things are not that simple. It seems that the laws of supply and demand do not fully apply to the credit market: low interest rates attract high demand, a part of which is never met, no matter what the interest rate. What is more, excessive interest rates seem to exacerbate the problem. Common knowledge holds that security interests provide at least a part of the answer, and yet economic theory has been ambiguous about them, to say the least.This book provides an in-depth analysis of both the general economic theory of secured lending, as well as the very concrete and detailed aspects of the legal framework in which it takes place, in Belgium and the United States. Legal practitioners will find a deeper economic understanding of how credit works, and answers to legal questions that no traditional, inside-the-box legal handbook will ever ask. Economists will find theory applied to, and checked by, the legal reality in which they necessarily operate, down to minute detail.