Amit Kumar

We arranged for trained undercover men and women to pose as potential clients and visit all 65 local financial advisory firms in Hong Kong. At financial planning firms, but not at securities firms, women were more likely than men to receive advice to buy only individual or only local securities. Female clients who signaled that they were highly confident, highly risk tolerant or had a domestic outlook, were especially likely to receive this suboptimal advice. Our theoretical model explains these patterns as the result of statistical discrimination interacting with advisors’ incentives. Taste-based discrimination is unlikely to explain the results.

Tighter regulations on consumer debt collectors, although intended to curb predatory practices, may disrupt industries to which such debts are owed. Using a paired-county stacked difference-in-differences design, we show that these regulations adversely affect hospitals. While hospital patient volume remains unchanged, their account receivables, liabilities, and profitability deteriorate, with stronger effects for ex-ante higher financial liability and debt collector density. Consequently, hospitals reduce capacity, employment, and care quality, and steer patients to high-cost procedures. Additionally, non-profit hospitals reduce charity care for uninsured patients. Overall, ignoring spillovers of consumer financial protection laws on non-financial sectors may overstate their benefits.

Widely manufactured since the 1940s, hazardous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) remained unregulated under U.S. water standards until 2024. Using a paired-county difference-in-differences design around the 2016 discovery of drinking water PFAS contamination following first-ever nationwide testing, we document that contaminated counties experienced adverse municipal and economic outcomes. Municipal bond offering yields rose, while municipal revenues, taxes, and expenditures declined. These resulted from increased within-state household outmigration, affecting tradable industries—raising wages, reducing job creation, and increasing firm closures—and ultimately raising overall unemployment. We highlight a novel household flight channel through which real shocks propagate to municipal bond markets.

Seven U.S. states enhanced consumer access to credit reports during the 1990s—a policy extended nationwide by federal law in 2005. Leveraging this extension in a paired-county difference-in-differences design across state borders, I show that easier access to credit reports improved the mortgage applicant pool, as reflected in higher approval ratios and fewer defaults. Credit history-based rejections declined more than debt-to-income ratio-based rejections, contributing to higher approvals. In my theoretical model, the pool improves because credit reports enhance potential borrowers' self-assessment of creditworthiness, leading to fewer suboptimal application decisions. Overall, expanding consumer access to creditworthiness information facilitates sound financial decision-making.