Jacob Faber
Faber will complete several articles about the expansion of the alternative financial services (AFS) industry over the past two decades. The dramatic growth of payday lenders, check cashers, pawnshops, and other AFS is concerning since such services tend to be more expensive than traditional banking services. He will use a combination of administrative, business, sociodemographic, and survey data to examine the individual, neighborhood, and metropolitan, drivers of AFS proliferation. He will focus on how America’s racialized geography and growing economic insecurity exacerbate exploitative and exclusionary financial services.