CAREER: The Emerging Political Economy of FringeTech Financial Services

数以百万计的美国人每个月都在努力维持收支平衡，但收入较低的人、年轻人和某些人口类别的人获得高质量的短期融资以弥补预算缺口的可能性要小得多。相反，这些集团不成比例地转向成本高昂的另类金融服务(AFS)，如发薪日贷款，这可能会造成持续的债务循环。最近金融科技的创新(金融科技)戏剧性地重塑了消费贷款市场，包括“边缘科技”的兴起--旨在与传统金融服务竞争的数字金融技术。然而，我们对使用辅助技术对经济困难的家庭--尤其是越来越多依赖辅助技术的低薪工人--可能产生的重大经济和政策后果知之甚少。这个项目将通过扩大我们对谁使用边缘技术、人们对边缘技术的依赖如何受到提供替代财政资源(例如福利)的国家规则的影响以及使用边缘技术如何影响人们的公共行为的了解，来帮助促进国家的繁荣和福利。调查结果将被公布，以帮助联邦和州一级就如何最好地监管这些新金融技术展开新的辩论。该项目还将帮助培训一批未来金融和金融科技研究领域的学者和从业者。这项职业研究和教学拨款将实现以下目标：1)分析原始的、大量的调查数据，以系统地描述不同群体何时以及如何使用附带技术来应对流动性问题；2)利用原始的定性借款人访谈和关于国家福利、财政保护和工资法律的数据集，分析国家子系统如何影响不同群体的附带技术的使用；3)分析人们对附带技术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，建立专题实验室和课程，以促进在这些领域历史上代表性不足的学生对附带技术的兴趣和研究；5)制作和传播研究，为新兴的联邦和州边缘技术法规提供信息，并创建公开可用的记分卡，帮助人们跟踪其所在州的边缘技术消费者保护情况。这个项目将有助于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边缘技术的理论；以及3)反馈效应，分析国家财政法规的设计和实施如何塑造人们的偏好。该项目将生成关于高度突出的监管问题的新颖的定量和定性数据，供其他研究人员和实践者使用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.