Essays in Alternative Financial Services

"Alternative financial services" is a term often used to describe the array of financial services offered by providers that operate outside of federally insured banks. More than one in four households in the United States are either unbanked or underbanked, a number that has been growing steadily since 2009, according to the FDIC. These households conduct some or all of their financial transactions outside of the mainstream banking system. Many rely on alternative financial services providers. Rent-to-own stores, pawn shops, and payday lenders are the largest providers of credit within the alternative financial services world. This dissertation studies the rent-to-own industry. The rent-to-own agreement provides consumers immediate access to durable goods without a credit check or down payment. In a typical transaction, an agreement is written for a period of 12 to 24 months. The item is delivered immediately and rental payments are made monthly. At the end of each month, a consumer can continue to rent by paying for an additional period, or can return the good to the store without further obligation. Consumers obtain ownership of the good by renting to term or through early payment of a pre-specified cash price. What makes the study of rent-to-own contracts interesting is the unique nature of the agreement. Neither a credit sale nor a pure lease, this contract is the cornerstone of an industry that serves more than six million Americans each year, operates 9,800 storefronts in all 50 U.S. states and Canada, generates over US$ 8.5 billion in revenues a year, and employs more than 50,000 individuals. The industry has drawn attention from regulators and consumer advocacy groups. At the heart of the debate is the ostensibly high price of the transaction, and the allegedly overwhelming profitability of the firms in the industry. The first chapter of this dissertation introduces and motivates my dissertation research. It is followed by a chapter containing an overview of the different literatures my works builds on. I contribute to these literatures in several ways. To begin with, I develop the most detailed and comprehensive analysis of the rent-to-own contract, the industry's institutional details and its regulatory framework. It is also the first fully independent study of rent-to-own using micro-level data. To the best of my knowledge, there is no other study based on transaction-level data that has not been commissioned by the industry. This dissertation also contains the first piece of work on the rent-to-own industry to employ structural estimation techniques, and therefore the first to credibly analyze the consequences of contract changes, regulatory changes and other counterfactual exercises on social welfare. Chapter 3 analyzes the characteristics of rent-to-own contracts and key components of the industry. Some of the questions I answer along the way are: What is rent-to-own? What makes the contract unique? Is rent-to-own expensive to consumers? Who are the main market participants? What do customers look like and how do they behave? What do firms look like and how do they perform? A proper understanding of the rent-to-own market is essential to assess the value of the transaction to consumers and firms, as well as to design sensible regulatory frameworks. I find that while rent-to-own looks expensive compared to cash retail and credit sale transactions, it does not when benchmarked against pure leases. And those unbanked or underbanked U.S. households wanting to access durable goods may have nowhere else to turn to. There is no evidence that the rent-to-own activity is overwhelmingly profitable. The industry seems to be competitive and the performance of rent-to-own firms stands roughly in the median of the distribution of profitability across industries in the U.S. In chapter 4 I use proprietary micro-level data from a medium-sized rent-to-own chain in Ohio to analyze the behavior of consumers and the transaction-level performance of firms. The reduced-form analysis carried out in this chapter helps us understand contract use in the context of rent-to-own. I address the controversy regarding the proportion of rent-to-own customers that rent items to term. Consumer advocates say the great majority of them do; the industry association states 75% return the rented item within the first four months of the contract. The analysis of micro-level data shows that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The data also reveal that consumers respond to the incentives and trade-offs presented to them by the contract. During the first half of the rent-to-own agreement, consumers mostly make rental payments or return the item. During the second half, as the early purchase option becomes more affordable, an increasing amount of consumers exercise it. Many of them just stop making payments and do not return the item. Delinquency is a serious problem in the industry that significantly affects the performance of rent-to-own firms. Furniture items and appliances, items that suffer the least from delinquency, are the most profitable product categories. The data description chapter motivates the development of a dynamic structural model of consumer behavior and firm performance. Chapter 5 presents the model, describes the estimation procedure and lists the challenges I had to be overcome along the way. I present the results of estimating the model using transaction-level data of rent-to-own contracts, as well as a series of robustness tests in chapter 6. The model does a very good job at fitting observed consumer behavior and the procedure and results. I use these demand estimates to analyze contract design, that is, how the different dimensions of the rent-to-own contract affect consumer satisfaction and firm performance. The counterfactual exercises suggest there exist potential changes to the contract terms that can make both consumers and firms better off. I find that reducing the flexibility of the rent-to-own contract in terms of the return option, while simultaneously decreasing the monthly rental rate, yields higher social welfare. Also, if regulation restricting the shape of the early purchase option schedule was lifted, the rent-to-own firm could alter the schedule in such a way as to make both consumers and the firm better off. This would entail a higher early purchase option price at the beginning of the rent-to-own contract, but this price would decrease faster over time than what the current regulation dictates. Finally, I show that better theft prevention measures could improve the performance of rent-to-own firms significantly. Rent-to-own operators could then transfer part of their increased revenue to consumers in the form of lower monthly rental rates.robustness tests yield favorable results, which increases my confidence in the estimation

Arti Penting Pendaftaran Tanah dalam Rangka Perlindungan Hukum Kepemilikan Sertipikat Hak Atas Tanah Bagi Pemilik Tanah (Studi di Desa Kalicilik Kabupaten Demak)

Land has a very important role. Increasing number of human population which isn't matched by existing land can lead to disputes. Thats because people are willing to do a variety of ways to achieve their goals. For this case, it's necessary to have some rules to prevent the increasingly complex problems, especially on land. This research aims to determine the people at village of Kalicilik's understanding how importance of the implementation of land registration, especially for legal protection to the land owners. What kind of motivations are owned by the people in the implementation of land registration. What kind of efforts have been carried out by the Land Office in order to achieve the implementation of the land certificate. The used method is juridical empirical's method. Specifications research is descriptive analytical. contained in this research is that people in the Kalicilik's village. Data analysis methods are systematically collected and collated and analyzed qualitatively. The results of the research and discussion that most of the people in the village are already know the importance of the implementation of land registration. By having a land certificate, will provide a sense of security because it can give legal certainty to landowners. However, there are still a few people in Kalicilik's that have the legal awareness of it. The lack of awareness of the law in the village of Kalicilik mainly dues to economic factors (cost) and because of the lack's of public knowledge about some land registration procedures correctly. it is influenced by the customs of the people who tend to prefer to use the agents in terms of land certificate's proccedures. In that case, it takes the efforts of many sides like : land's registration , village officials, the motivations indeed by the people's sides to realize the orderly administration of land, especially for the land's certificate

Kegiatan Integrated Marketing Communication UMKM Se-Bandung Raya Dalam Program SinergitaS ABCGM

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui bagaimana kegiatan IMC yang dilakukan oleh UMKM se-Bandung Raya dalam Program Sinergitas ABCGM. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan analisis deskriptif. Sampel yang diambil sebanyak 3 orang yang merupakan UMKM aktif dalam Program Sinergitas ABCGM. Penelitian ini menggunakan teknik pengumpulan data observasi, wawancara dan dokumentasi. Peneliti memfokuskan kegiatan IMC pada Advertising, Publicity dan Word of Mouth. Kegiatan Advertising, Publicity dan Word of Mouth yang di Lakukan UMKM se-Bandung Raya dalam Program Sinergitas ABCGM menggunakan strategi digital Marketing melalui media sosial utama yaitu instagram. Strategi digital Marketing dengan Advertising, Publicity dan Word of Mouth yang di Lakukan UMKM se-Bandung Raya dalam Program Sinergitas ABCGM belum tertata dengan rapih karena manajemen yang tidak dilakukan secara maksimal

SubItalian. Un'applicazione Web per l'apprendimento dell'italiano tramite sottotitolazione e annotazione di audiovisivi.

SubItalian è un'applicazione web nata con lo scopo di dimostrare come le tecnologie informatiche sviluppate negli ultimi anni possano facilitare e incentivare l'apprendimento di una lingua (in questo caso l'italiano) in modo del tutto alternativo e, con tutta probabilità, decisamente stimolante. L'applicazione prevede due tipologie di utenti: - learner: tutti coloro che vogliano apprendere l'italiano; - tutor: tutti coloro che siano interessati nell'affiancare gli utenti learner. Tutti gli utenti possono caricare in SubItalian del materiale audiovisivo che viene trascritto e annotato automaticamente. I tutor hanno a disposizione degli strumenti per: - revisionare ciò che il sistema ha generato automaticamente; - creare esercitazioni destinate ai learner. Inoltre, è disponibile un forum tramite cui utenti learner e utenti tutor possono comunicare. SubItalian is a web application created to demonstrate how informatics technologies developed in recent years can facilitate and encourage the learning of a foreign language (in this case Italian) in an alternative and, likely, very stimulating way. The application expects two types of users: - learner: all those who want to learn Italian; - tutor: all those who are interested in assisting the learners. Every user can upload to SubItalian audiovisual material which is transcribed and annotated automatically. Tutor users also have access to some useful tools allowing them to: - revision what the system has automatically generated; - create exercises designed for learner users. In addition, a forum through which learners and tutors can communicate is provided

From emerging adults' unmet psychosocial needs to their problematic use of social networking sites: the mediating role of Fear of Missing Out

Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) is a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent. Consequently, individuals experiencing FoMO wish to stay constantly in contact with what others are doing and engage with social networking sites for this purpose. In recent times, FoMO has received increased attention from psychological research, as a minority of users experiencing high levels of FoMO - particularly young people - might develop a problematic social networking site use, defined as the maladaptive and excessive use of social networking sites, resulting in symptoms associated with other addictions. According to the theoretical framework of the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition- Execution (I-PACE) model, FoMO and certain motives for use may foster problematic use in individuals who display unmet psychosocial needs. However, to date, the I-PACE model has only conceptualized the general higher-order mechanisms related to the development of problematic use. Consistently, the overall purpose of this dissertation was to deepen the understanding of the mediating role of FoMO between specific predisposing variables and problematic social networking sites use. Adopting a psychological approach, two empirical and exploratory cross-sectional studies, conceived as independent research, were conducted through path analysis

Strategi Media Penyiaran Dalam Membuat Program Siaran Yang Sehat Bagi Publik

Strategi media menyiaran di Cirebon dan Majalengka dalam membuat dan mempertahankan program siaran dengan dengan menggunakan lima pendekatan: yaitu (1) Sajian yang Diminati dan Menarik, (2) Memperhatikan Audiens (Pendengar dan Pemirsa), (3) Konten Lokal, (4) Segmen Usia, (5) Interkasi dengan Pendengar. Temuan lainnya adalah tentang dinamika eksistensi media penyiaran di Cirebon dan Majalengka di tengah serbuan internet dan media sosial. Media penyiaran di Cirebon dan Majalengka terus beradaptasi dengan perubahan perilaku masyarakat di media sosial. Kata kunci: Strategi Media Penyiaran, Program Siaran, Konten Sehat, Publi