5,429 research outputs found

    Know Your Borrower: The Four Need Cases of Small-Dollar Credit Consumers

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    Every year, an estimated 15 million people access small-dollar credit (SDC) products- like payday loans, pawn loans, auto title loans, deposit advance loans, and more. CFSI explores the reasons why consumers turn to these potentially high cost products in this latest report. The study, supported by funding from the Ford Foundation, identifies four primary consumer need cases in the SDC market, each representing a distinct borrower profile and different uses of small-dollar credit. The need cases are:Unexpected Expense borrowers tend to access credit infrequently for relatively larger expenses related to an unexpected or emergency event, such as a car repair.Misaligned Cash Flow borrowers take out smaller amounts somewhat frequently to pay bills and meet regular household expenses when their income and expenses are mistimed.Exceeding Income borrowers' expenses regularly exceed their income and these consumers tend to be among the most frequent users of credit, accessing small amounts for everyday expenses.Planned Purchase borrowers are a smaller but important niche group of users in the SDC market who make a relatively large, planned purchase, commonly related to a personal asset.These need cases were determined through analysis of a panel survey of more than 1,100 SDC borrowers and 31 in-depth interviews with SDC customers. They provide a new framework for exploring the challenge of when and how to responsibly extend small-dollar credit. The findings also suggest potential opportunities for the development of high-quality products, highlighting the importance of product differentiation and underwriting

    Knowledge Transfer Needs and Methods

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    INE/AUTC 12.3

    Why are convertible bond announcements associated with increasingly negative issuer stock returns? An arbitrage-based explanation

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    While convertible offerings announced between 1984 and 1999 induce average abnormal stock returns of −1.69%, convertible announcement effects over the period 2000–2008 are more than twice as negative (−4.59%). We hypothesize that this evolution is attributable to a shift in the convertible bond investor base from long-only investors towards convertible arbitrage funds. These funds buy convertibles and short the underlying stocks, causing downward price pressure. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that the differences in announcement returns between the Traditional Investor period (1984–1999) and the Arbitrage period (2000–September 2008) disappear when controlling for arbitrage-induced short selling associated with a range of hedging strategies. Post-issuance stock returns are also in line with the arbitrage explanation. Average announcement effects of convertibles issued during the Global Financial Crisis are even more negative (−9.12%), due to a combination of short-selling price pressure and issuer, issue, and macroeconomic characteristics associated with these offerings

    A spectral deferred correction strategy for low Mach number reacting flows subject to electric fields

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    We propose an algorithm for low Mach number reacting flows subjected to electric field that includes the chemical production and transport of charged species. This work is an extension of a multi-implicit spectral deferred correction (MISDC) algorithm designed to advance the conservation equations in time at scales associated with advective transport. The fast and nontrivial interactions of electrons with the electric field are treated implicitly using a Jacobian-Free Newton Krylov approach for which a preconditioning strategy is developed. Within the MISDC framework, this enables a close and stable coupling of diffusion, reactions and dielectric relaxation terms with advective transport and is shown to exhibit second-order convergence in space and time. The algorithm is then applied to a series of steady and unsteady problems to demonstrate its capability and stability. Although developed in a one-dimensional case, the algorithmic ingredients are carefully designed to be amenable to multidimensional applications

    Fast fluorescence microscopy for imaging the dynamics of embryonic development

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    Live imaging has gained a pivotal role in developmental biology since it increasingly allows real-time observation of cell behavior in intact organisms. Microscopes that can capture the dynamics of ever-faster biological events, fluorescent markers optimal for in vivo imaging, and, finally, adapted reconstruction and analysis programs to complete data flow all contribute to this success. Focusing on temporal resolution, we discuss how fast imaging can be achieved with minimal prejudice to spatial resolution, photon count, or to reliably and automatically analyze images. In particular, we show how integrated approaches to imaging that combine bright fluorescent probes, fast microscopes, and custom post-processing techniques can address the kinetics of biological systems at multiple scales. Finally, we discuss remaining challenges and opportunities for further advances in this field
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