CAREER: The Emerging Political Economy of FringeTech Financial Services

职业：边缘科技金融服务的新兴政治经济

• 批准号: 2337719
• 负责人: Mallory SoRelle
• 金额: $ 50.69万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-07-01 至 2029-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2337719&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Emerging; Political; Economy; FringeTech

Millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet each month, but lower income people, younger people, and people from certain demographic categories are much less likely to have access to quality short-term financing to bridge budget gaps. Instead, these groups disproportionately turn to costly alternative financial services (AFS) like payday loans that can create a persistent cycle of debt. Recent innovations in financial technology (fintech) have dramatically reshaped the consumer loan market, including the rise of “fringetech”—digital financial technologies designed to compete with traditional AFS. Yet, we know little about the potentially significant economic and policy consequences of fringetech use for households who are struggling financially—especially low-wage workers who are relying on fringetech in growing numbers. This project will help advance national prosperity and welfare by expanding our understanding of who uses fringetech, how people’s reliance on fringetech is shaped by state rules that provide alternative financial resources (e.g., welfare), and how using fringetech influences people’s public behaviors. Findings will be disseminated to help inform emerging debates at the federal and state level about how best to regulate these new financial technologies. The project will also help train a diverse cohort of future scholars and practitioners in finance and fintech research. This CAREER research and teaching grant will achieve the following objectives: 1) analyze original, large-n survey data to systematically describe when and how different cohorts use fringetech to navigate liquidity problems; 2) utilize original qualitative borrower interviews and a dataset on state welfare, financial protection, and wage laws to analyze how state subsystems shape fringetech use for different cohorts; 3) analyze whether and how people’s fringetech use influences their preferences for economic rules and their public participation; 4) establish a topical lab and course, based on principles of inclusive pedagogy, to promote interest in and research concerning fringetech from students historically underrepresented in those fields; and 5) produce and disseminate research to inform emerging federal and state fringetech regulation, and create publicly available scorecards to help people track fringetech consumer protection in their state. This project will contribute to theories of 1) the welfare state, exploring how state welfare regimes influence financial decision-making; 2) participation, generating a theory of fringetech as a resource for civic engagement; and 3) feedback effects, analyzing how the design and implementation of state financial regulations shape people’s preferences. The project will generate novel quantitative and qualitative data about a highly salient regulatory issue for use by other researchers and practitioners.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

数以百万计的美国人每个月都在努力维持生计，但低收入人群、年轻人和某些人口统计类别的人更不可能获得高质量的短期融资来弥补预算缺口。 相反，这些群体不成比例地转向昂贵的替代金融服务（AFS），如发薪日贷款，这可能会造成持续的债务循环。金融技术（fintech）的最新创新极大地重塑了消费贷款市场，包括“fringetech”的兴起-旨在与传统AFS竞争的数字金融技术。然而，我们对fringetech的使用对那些在经济上挣扎的家庭，特别是越来越多依赖fringetech的低工资工人的潜在重大经济和政策后果知之甚少。这个项目将有助于促进国家的繁荣和福利，扩大我们对谁使用fringetech的理解，人们对fringetech的依赖如何受到提供替代财政资源的国家规则的影响（例如，福利），以及使用fringetech如何影响人们的公共行为。调查结果将被传播，以帮助为联邦和州一级关于如何最好地监管这些新金融技术的新辩论提供信息。该项目还将帮助培养金融和金融科技研究领域的未来学者和从业者。该CAREER研究和教学补助金将实现以下目标：1）分析原始的大型调查数据，系统地描述不同群体何时以及如何使用fringetech来解决流动性问题; 2）利用原始的定性借款人访谈和关于国家福利，金融保护和工资法的数据集来分析国家子系统如何塑造不同群体的fringetech使用; 3）分析人们对fringetech的使用是否以及如何影响他们对经济规则的偏好和他们的公众参与; 4）根据包容性教育学的原则，建立一个专题实验室和课程，以促进历史上在这些领域代表性不足的学生对fringetech的兴趣和研究; 5）制作和传播研究报告，为新出现的联邦和州fringetech法规提供信息，并创建公开的记分卡，帮助人们跟踪该州的fringetech消费者保护情况。该项目将有助于1）福利国家的理论，探索国家福利制度如何影响金融决策; 2）参与，产生作为公民参与资源的fringetech理论;和3）反馈效应，分析国家金融法规的设计和实施如何塑造人们的偏好。该项目将产生关于一个非常突出的监管问题的新的定量和定性数据，供其他研究人员和从业人员使用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。