Banks, alternative institutions and the spatial–temporal ecology of racial inequality in US cities
Mario L. Small (),
Armin Akhavan,
Mo Torres and
Qi Wang
Additional contact information
Mario L. Small: Harvard University
Armin Akhavan: Northeastern University
Mo Torres: Harvard University
Qi Wang: Northeastern University
Nature Human Behaviour, 2021, vol. 5, issue 12, 1622-1628
Abstract:
Abstract Research has made clear that neighbourhood conditions affect racial inequality. We examine how living in minority neighbourhoods affects ease of access to conventional banks versus alternative financial institutions (AFIs) such as check cashers and payday lenders, which some have called predatory. Based on more than 6 million queries, we compute the difference in the time required to walk, drive or take public transport to the nearest bank versus AFI from the middle of every block in each of 19 of the largest cities in the United States. The results suggest that race is strikingly more important than class: even after numerous conditions are accounted for, the AFI is more often closer than the bank in low-poverty racial/ethnic minority neighbourhoods than in high-poverty white ones. Results are driven not by the absence of banks but by the prevalence of AFIs in minority areas. Gaps appear too large to reflect simple differences in preferences.
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01153-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nathum:v:5:y:2021:i:12:d:10.1038_s41562-021-01153-1
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01153-1
Access Statistics for this article
Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta
More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().