My research focuses on how consumers and households manage their finances. This is a very active area of growth and innovation in industry and policy. I have recently worked in an advisory capacity for a variety of organisations and government agencies. I am always keen to explore possibilities for collaborative research with policymakers or industry, especially research that draws upon (completely anonymous) individual level data.
Research Impact Highlights
Regulation of High-Cost Short-Term Credit (including Payday Loans)
My research on the effects of payday loans on consumers, undertaken jointly with Ben Guttman-Kenney and Stefan Hunt (economists at the UK Financial Conduct Authority) and published in the Review of Financial Studies (here), was used by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as the evidence base for the design of a price-cap on payday lending. The research, conducted in 2014, drew on the near-universe of UK payday loan applications over a two year period and employed a regression discontinuity design. The original FCA consultation document including the research technical appendices and the FCA final policy also reproduce the research paper findings in full. The resulting policy limited interest and charges on payday loans and has saved consumers over £600m in interest and charges since it was introduced in 2015. I testified before the UK parliament on the implications of this research for policy, including appearing before the Treasury Select Committee Inquiry on Consumer Financial Management. I provided expert witness testimony on a variety of topics, including the Price Cap for Payday Lending. Testimony before UK parliament. I have written more generally on the topic of payday lending in a report published by the UK Think Tank Respublica "Climbing the Credit Ladder". I further advised the FCA on the design and implementation of research on the 'Rent-to-Own' credit market in the UK.
Causes of Consumer Credit Over-Indebtedness
Since 2009, I have undertaken a series of studies commissioned by UK government on the causes of over-indebtedness. The first project for the Department of Business scrutinized the existing definitions of ‘over-indebted’ and analysed the causes of household over-indebtedness at the individual level, published in the project report 'Drivers of Over-Indebtedness' A second report focused on the potential for using individual-level data held by the consumer counselling sector as an alternative and potentially higher quality data source to better understand the causes of over-indebtedness at the individual level, published as ‘Understanding Consumer Over-Indebtedness Using Counselling Sector Data’. I subsequently testified about this research at the Business Select Committee. Select Committee Inquiry Report. In 2016 I conducted an updated analysis for the Financial Conduct Authority "Can We Predict Which Consumer Credit Users Will Suffer Financial Distress?" (with Ben Guttman-Kenney), also see FCA Insight Coverage.
Other Impact Activities
Current and Future Collaborations