Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is one of the newest short-term credit options available in the marketplace today. It is designed to be an interest-free way of splitting the cost of a good or service into smaller payments, to be repaid in full over the course of six weeks. BNPL has seen exponential growth over the last five years, yet it is still a highly unregulated form of credit. The study will explore the profile of the typical BNPL user financial behavior with the ultimate goal of answering the question of whether BNPL is a prudent financial practice utilized by the financially savvy or a predatory form of credit designed to target the financially vulnerable. The 2023 Survey of Household Economics and Decision-Making (SHED) to attempt to answer these questions. Finally, this study advocates for regulatory bodies in the United States to devise legislation to protect the most vulnerable from some of the most potent risks of BNPL products, including loan stacking and overextending for the study results show that BNPL is predatory.
Pawn loans, payday loans, check cashers, and other non-bank financial products provide a crucial credit source to lower income households, although empirical literature on how these “fringe banks” affect well-being is mixed. We test whether the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion reduced demand for these controversial products by assisting households with medical expenditure risk. _x000D_ We show reductions in use of fringe banks result from increases in insurance and reductions in medical expenditures. We find that Medicaid eligibility decreases use of fringe bank products on average, particularly fringe credit products. Importantly, however, the effect of the Medicaid expansion on fringe bank use varies substantially by state. Using detailed information on state policies and machine learning, we show that how states expanded Medicaid is crucial to whether individuals in that state report improved financial outcomes as a result of the Medicaid expansion.
After the 2018 Supreme Court decision overturning Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which had effectively banned sports betting nationwide, 38 states legalized sports gambling. As a result, between 2019 and 2023, the total amount legally wagered on sports increased tenfold. This study assesses the causal impact of sports gambling legalization on alternative financial service use using a nation-wide 1% sample of individual-level payday loan application data from Clarity from 2014 to 2021. I leverage state-quarter level variation in the legality of sports gambling after the 2018 Supreme Court decision using a two-way fixed effects framework with staggered treatment timing introduced by Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021). The convenience of app-based betting platforms, offering the ability to place bets at any time from any location, raises concerns about the potential for exacerbating gambling problems that increase financial hardships. Research has yet to explore these potential consequences of legalized sports gambling on alternative financial service use. This study provides empirical evidence for policymakers and advocacy groups to consider in the development of regulations to mitigate the negative externalities of gambling legalization on personal and household financial well-being.
Consumer financial access has been measured through a wide range of financial services and products in the literature, while the psychometric properties of such measures are not clear. This study explores the dimensions underlying consumer financial access related to mainstream financial products and services in the United States. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), three factors of 14 financial services and products were extracted, explaining 52% of the cumulative variance. Results suggest categorizing financial products and services into three distinct components: basic banking services (two items: checking and savings accounts); advanced financial services (nine items: retirement accounts, Certificate of Deposits (CDs), investments, disability insurance, life insurance, bank loan, line of credit, financial counseling/coaching, and credit score); and mobile/online banking services (three items: mobile banking, transfer applications, and debit cards). When measuring and evaluating financial access, it is important to include a comprehensive list of financial services and products from these three categories. These findings have significant implications for research, practice, and policy._x000D_
Transgender Americans are a growing demographic with unique financial concerns. This study analyzes data from the “transpop survey”, the first national probability sample of transgender Americans. We use regression analysis to examine the financial situation of transgender people._x000D_ We find that transgender Americans are significantly more likely to display signs of financial vulnerability than the population as a whole - for example, struggling to meet everyday expenses and skipping a doctor's appointment for financial reasons. We also find that variation in financial outcomes within the transgender population, does not display the same gender patterns as within the population as a whole.
Consumers experiencing lower levels of intimate social support are often left to navigate the requirements of life using only the resources available to them. In at least some cases, those resources are insufficient to cope with the demands of life. Supportive services represent one external source of coping resources that an individual might employ to maintain well-being in the absence of intimate social support. In this study we argue that the use of services can be an effective coping resource for people experiencing a lower level of social support. Using data from 600 U.S. adults, we explore the use of services as a mediating role in the relationship between social support and well-being. We find that while the use of supportive services promotes greater well-being, people experiencing lower levels of intimate social support are not more (or less) likely to seek such services. We feel this finding represents opportunities in the design of services and the education of consumers as to the benefits of their use.
In this study, I employ text analysis to examine the wide range of personal finance courses available to high school students in the US. I focus on text information available in the course names and course descriptions collected for more than 19,000 courses offered in high schools across the US. Course descriptions and course names include important information that is used by many decision makers, including students, instructors, prospective employers, and post-secondary educational institutions (Oregon State University, 2024). I will analyze trends in the content and objectives of high school personal finance courses across time and geography. The findings from this study will contribute a new perspective on differences in the implementation of personal finance course mandates at the local level.
This study investigates the impact of financial literacy on financial well-being, accounting for state-level variations across the United States. Grounded in Human Capital Theory, which posits that individuals' knowledge and skills significantly influence their economic outcomes, this research employs a multilevel ordinal regression model to explore how subjective and objective financial literacy affect individuals' financial well-being. Using data from the NFCS 2021 dataset, the analysis captures individual and state-level variations in financial well-being. The study finds that objective and subjective financial literacy strongly predict financial well-being. While state-level factors contribute to variations in financial well-being, their influence is relatively minor compared to individual-level financial literacy and demographics. These findings highlight the importance of promoting financial literacy to improve financial well-being across diverse populations. For policymakers and educators, the study emphasizes the need for targeted financial education programs that address gaps in both knowledge and confidence, particularly among vulnerable groups, while acknowledging the role of state-level interventions in enhancing financial outcomes. Furthermore, the insights from this study can guide financial planners and advisors in developing more tailored strategies to improve financial literacy and support better financial decision-making, ultimately reducing financial stress and enhancing long-term financial security.
This study examines the impact of state-mandated high school financial education on banking decisions using FDIC survey data (2009-2023). While unbanked households decreased steadily from 8.2% to 4.2% (2011-2023), decline has slowed, with 5.6 million households still unbanked. Establishing a causal link between financial education and inclusion will be insightful, as prior research only shows correlation. This research employs a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences model, exploiting variation in state mandates to analyze their effect on individuals’ likelihood of being banked and on future banking interest among those unbanked. Findings reveal that exposure to personal finance coursework significantly reduces the likelihood of being unbanked and decreases the likelihood of being uninterested in opening a bank account among the unbanked population. These results underscore the importance of mandated high school financial education for future financial decision-making and promoting financial inclusion.
