Monthly Payment Research Articles

Aspectos del crédito hipotecario en el bienestar de las personas trabajadoras. El caso de la banca comercial y el INFONAVIT en México

Más allá de presentar un estudio comparativo en donde se muestre en términos financieros el mayor beneficio posible para el trabajador, derivado de algún esquema de crédito hipotecario para la adquisición de una vivienda, el objetivo de este trabajo se centra en mostrar dos opciones de crédito para tal fin: una de estas opciones es el crédito hipotecario que ofrece la banca comercial de primer piso y otra opción es el crédito hipotecario a través del Instituto del Fondo Nacional para la Vivienda de los Trabajadores (INFONAVIT). Para ello fue necesario realizar un análisis financiero mediante el uso de modelos de amortización en su modalidad vencida. Los resultados indican que el financiamiento por parte de la banca de primer piso es la más conveniente, porque comparativamente, el monto de la mensualidad es más bajo y la vida del crédito hipotecario es más corta, asimismo la tasa de interés es más baja en la banca de primer piso. Sin embargo para quienes no puedan obtener un crédito por parte de la Banca comercial, las instituciones de seguridad social como el INFONAVIT resultan ser un escenario viable para adquirir dicha vivienda. Ambas opciones tienen sus beneficios, lo que lleva a pensar que la selección de la opción de crédito dependerá de la situación económica y laboral de la persona que solicite el crédito.

The Effect of Information Disclosure on Industry Payments to Physicians

In 2019, U.S. pharmaceutical companies paid $3.6 billion to physicians in the form of gifts to promote their drugs. The practice of offering financial incentives has raised concerns about potential conflict of interest. To curb such inappropriate financial relationships between healthcare providers and firms, several states have instituted disclosure laws wherein firms were required to publicly declare the payments that they made to physicians. In 2013, this law was rolled out to all 50 states as part of the Affordable Care Act. The authors investigate the causal impact of this increased transparency on subsequent payments between firms and physicians. While firms and physicians were informed of the disclosure regulation at data collection, complete transparency did not occur until the data were published online. The authors estimate the causal impact of the online data disclosure by exploiting the phased rollout of the disclosure laws across states. They use a quasi-experimental difference-in-difference research design to find control ``clones'' for every physician-product pair in the states with and without prior disclosure laws, facilitated by recent advances in machine learning methods. Using a 29-month national panel covering $100 million in payments between 16 anti-diabetics brands and 50,000 physicians, the authors find that the monthly payments changed insignificantly on average due to disclosure. However, the average null effect masks some unintended consequences of disclosure, where payments may have gone up for more expensive drugs and among physicians who prescribed more heavily. Interestingly, more popular physicians and heavier prescribers continue to receive high consulting and speaker fees after the disclosure. The authors further explore potential mechanisms that can parsimoniously describe the data pattern.

Snubbing the old to embrace the new: the impact of cross-buying on the usage of existing services

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of an additional service on existing consumers’ usage of existing services from the same service provider. Research has often focused on marketers’ efforts to sell new offerings to existing customers. However, does the consumption of these new offerings by existing customers affect their usage of the firm’s existing services? This research examines this question in the context of a subscription service.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses matched consumer- and firm-level data from a leading telecom service provider in India. These data include responses from 230 consumers, as well as details on their usage of existing and additional services. The data are analyzed using three-stage least squares regressions while controlling for consumers’ past usage of the existing services.FindingsThe results indicate that existing consumers’ cross-buying of the new service results in a reduction of their future usage of existing services. Most consumers also managed to maintain their monthly payments constant, even though they had subscribed to the new service. Together, these findings imply that consumers reallocate their budget by reducing their usage of existing services to accommodate the usage of an additional service from the same service provider. Consequently, the revenue of the firm might not always increase when the consumer cross-buys an additional service from the firm.Originality/valueMarketing research on cross-buying has so far neglected to look at the effects of existing consumers’ adoption of an additional service on existing services of the service provider. This study focused on this gap in knowledge, in the context of subscription services. Using consumers’ perceptions and matched service usage data, the authors extend the literature that tries to understand why cross-buying may not be beneficial to the firm in certain service settings.

Framing and retirement age: The gap between willingness-to-accept and willingness-to-pay

In a large online experiment, we relate the retirement timing decision to the disparity between the willingness-to-accept (WTA) and the willingness-to-pay (WTP). In the WTP treatment, participants indicate the maximum amount of monthly benefits they are willing to give up to retire early. In the WTA treatment, the minimum increase of monthly payments to delay retirement is elicited. Our results reveal that the framing of the decision problem strongly influences participants’ reservation price for early retirement. The WTA for early retirement is more than twice as high as the corresponding WTP. Using actual values from the German social security system as market prices, we demonstrate that the presentation in a WTA frame can induce early retirement. In this frame, the implicit probability of retiring early increases by 30 percentage points. We further show that the disparity between WTA and WTP is correlated with loss aversion. Repeating the analysis with data from a representative household survey (German SAVE panel), we find similar results.

Readability of the credit card agreements and financial charges

We examined the readability of credit card agreements and its relationship with financial charges. Examining the credit card agreements filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2014, we found that the typical credit card agreement is written at an 8th to 9th grade level, which is higher than the average American reading level. We show that the readability of credit card agreements is negatively related to financial charges: cards with easier-to-read agreements are associated with lower annual percentage rates, lower minimum monthly payments, and lower cash advance fees.

Association of financial hardship with poor sleep health outcomes among men who have sex with men

Previous studies have identified an association between socioeconomic status and sleep health. While some research has studied this association among sexual minority groups, including men who have sex with men (MSM), they exclusively focused on US-based populations. The interplay between the two in shaping sleep health has not been previously examined on populations residing outside the US. This study considers both determinants, by investigating whether financial hardship is associated with sleep health among a sample of MSM in Paris, France. Broadcast advertisements were placed on a popular geosocial-networking smartphone application for MSM to direct users in Paris to a web-based survey measuring financial hardship and five dimensions of sleep health as well as socio-demographic characteristics. Modified Poisson models with robust error variance were computed to estimate risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the associations between financial hardship and the following self-reported outcomes: 1) poor sleep quality, 2) short sleep duration; and 3) sleep problems. In total, 580 respondents completed the survey. In this sample, both financial hardship and poor sleep health were common - 45.5% reported that it was extremely, very, or somewhat difficult for them to meet their monthly payments on bills (referred to as “high financial hardship”) and 30.1% rated their sleep as fairly bad or very bad (referred to as “poor sleep quality”). Multivariate models revealed that, compared to participants who reported low financial hardship, those who reported high financial hardship were more likely to report poor sleep quality (aRR: 1.35, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.77), to report problems falling asleep (aRR: 1.23, 95% CI: 1.02, 1.49), and to report problems staying awake in the daytime (aRR: 3.12, 95% CI: 1.83, 5.31). Future research should investigate whether this relationship is causal and determine whether interventions to reduce financial hardships could promote sleep health among MSM.

Factors associated with nonpayment behavior in the water sector of Nicaragua

Nonpayment behavior by consumers may jeopardize the financial sustainability of water utilities. Yet, little is known about factors underlying nonpayment behavior. This paper identifies determinants of nonpayment in Nicaragua using negative binomial regression models that account for overdispersion in the number of outstanding payments of water bills. We found that the average household had 37 outstanding monthly payments. Nonpayment was found to be inversely associated with consumer satisfaction with the current quality of water service and household income. However, nonpayment was found to be disassociated from the perceived consequentiality of not paying water bills on time. Policy implications are discussed.

New York State’s Path to Behavioral Health Integration

New York State’s Path to Behavioral Health Integration

Loan Contracting in the Presence of Usury Limits: Evidence from Automobile Lending

We study the eects of usury limits on the market for auto loans and nd little evidence of credit rationing. We show instead that loan contracting and the organization of the loan market adjust to facilitate loans to risky borrowers. When usury restrictions bind, auto dealers nance their customers’ purchases and raise the vehicle sales price (and loan amount) relative to the value of the underlying collateral. By doing so, they arrange loans with similar monthly payments and compensate for credit risk through the mark-up on the product sale rather than the loan interest rate.

Pricing of mortgages with prepayment and default options: numerical methods for the case with adjustable (floating) rate

In this paper we consider the valuation of adjustable-rate mortgages with prepayment and default options where the underlying stochastic variables are the house price and the interest rate. Additionally, we obtain the value of the insurance associated to the contract. The mortgage value is understood as the discounted value of the future monthly payments. The mathematical model to obtain the mortgage price is posed in terms of a sequence of complementarity problems associated with partial differential equations (PDEs). One of the main innovative aspects is the consideration of a floating interest rate, which is linked to an index and fixed for each year of the loan life. The model for the value of the insurance is also posed. In this setting, we propose appropriate numerical methods to solve the models, which are mainly based on a Lagrange–Galerkin discretization of the PDE in time and space, jointly with an augmented Lagrangian active set method to deal with the complementarity formulation. Finally, some numerical results are presented in order to illustrate the behaviour of the numerical schemes, the properties of the mortgage value and the comparison with alternative fixed rate mortgages.

Homeownership Affordability of Low Income Group in Kuala Lumpur

The housing issue has taken over the global attention particularly homeownership affordability issue. Owning a house is significantly known as one of the basic necessities in human survival. Thus, the capability of the low income group to afford a house is practically the main highlight in this issue. Besides, the escalation of the low income group in the urban areas which occurred due to the migration to enhance a better life causes this issue to be left as a debatable one. Hence, it is important to identify the affordability levels and also the socioeconomic factors which affect the homeownerships affordability of the low income groups in Kuala Lumpur city. The socioeconomic factors were focused on household income, household expenditures, type of employments, the education levels, household sizes, the monthly payment for housing and the household savings. Furthermore, an investigation based on the stratified sampling techniques was carried out on a total of 400 of head households according to their specified residential zones. The indication of the housing affordability level was measured based on the residual income theory whereas the binary logistic regression was implemented in identifying their affordability factors. The results exhibit the low income groups are afforded to own public housing unit in Kuala Lumpur. Household income, household expenditures and monthly payment for housing affect homeownership affordability significantly. Conversely, education level, types of employment, household size and household savings not affects homeownership affordability significantly.

Using Google Sheets to Determine Mortgage Information

Google Sheets, a spreadsheet software similar to Microsoft’s Excel software, is available to anyone who has a Gmail account. Gmail is available for free by Google and allows users to have access to Google’s Drive, which contains Google Sheets. With very little programming, one can compute many different aspects of a mortgage, given knowledge of three out of the four possible mortgage inputs (i.e., loan amount, monthly payment, maturity, interest rate). It does not matter which three inputs are supplied—the spreadsheet will produce the missing fourth item.

Utilizing PV System for Auxiliary Energy Demand in Conventional Power Plant

The purpose of this study is to investigate the utilization of PV feeding system for auxiliary energy demand in the conventional power plants. A 573 MW tri-fuel power plant in Jordan IPP3 the largest internal combustion engine (ICE) power plant in the world is the case study to evaluate the energy economy aspects of PV feeding system and its effects on the monthly payments for this energy. All relevant computations will be performed in order to end up with reasonable, feasible and applicable results. The auxiliary energy demand of this power plant while no operation is covered from the national transmission grid which results in around 48 MWh imported energy on daily basis taking in mind no operation case. Therefore, such PV system will have a noticeable impact over the productivity of the whole plant as well as raising the money spent for fuel upon the reduction of the heat rate. The PV system is sized to have a capacity of 2 MWp planned to be utilized during the day time. Considering the imported energy benefit, the corresponding pay-back period will through the 5th year where is expected to be accomplished during the 7th year when it comes to the heat rate improvement. The prominent fact to be mentioned here that the pay-back period upon either imported energy benefit of heat rate improvement is calculated separately.

Less Intense Postacute Care, Better Outcomes For Enrollees In Medicare Advantage Than Those In Fee-For-Service.

Traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare's prospective payment systems for postacute care provide little incentive to coordinate care or control costs. In contrast, Medicare Advantage plans pay for postacute care out of monthly capitated payments and thus have stronger incentives to use it efficiently. We compared the use of postacute care in skilled nursing and inpatient rehabilitation facilities by enrollees in Medicare Advantage and FFS Medicare after hospital discharge for three high-volume conditions: lower extremity joint replacement, stroke, and heart failure. After accounting for differences in patient characteristics at discharge, we found lower intensity of postacute care for Medicare Advantage patients compared to FFS Medicare patients discharged from the same hospital, across all three conditions. Medicare Advantage patients also exhibited better outcomes than their FFS Medicare counterparts, including lower rates of hospital readmission and higher rates of return to the community. These findings suggest that payment reforms such as bundling in FFS Medicare may reduce the intensity of postacute care without adversely affecting patient health.

Evaluating borrower’s default risk in peer-to-peer lending: evidence from a lending platform in China

ABSTRACTRecent years have witnessed the popularity of online peer-to-peer lending, which allows individuals to borrow from and lend to each other on an Internet-based platform. Using data from a large P2P platform in China, this article explores the factors that determine the default risk based on the demographic characteristics of borrowers. Moreover, we propose a credit risk evaluation model, which can quantify the default risk of each P2P loan. Empirical results reveal that gender, age, marital status, educational level, working years, company size, monthly payment, loan amount, debt to income ratio and delinquency history play a significant role in loan defaults. Finally, we analyse the relationship between default risk and these contributory variables, and the possible causes are also discussed in this study.

Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors' Valuation of Post-Treatment Recommended Care.

Examine whether survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer value recommended post-treatment care using focus groups and a willingness to pay (WTP) survey. WTP, a measure of value, indicates the dollar amount individuals are willing to pay to use a service. Participants were recruited through the Utah Cancer Registry. N = 28 survivors diagnosed with cancer at ages 15-39 and currently aged ≥18 participated in focus groups, and N = 4 in phone interviews (participation rate = 50%). All participants responded to a demographic survey and WTP questions based on one-time and monthly payments for annual visits. Focus group participants responded to an open-ended question on the value of follow-up care. Interval regressions identified factors associated with WTP. Qualitative analysis summarized themes for the open-ended question. Focus group participants reported valuing follow-up care as it brings peace of mind and helps them manage their health. Yet, 38% reported not having a cancer-related visit in the previous year. Only 27% and 43% of survivors agreed to pay any one-time and monthly payments, respectively. The monthly payment mean WTP was $41 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 31-84), equating to $494 annually, which is greater than the mean WTP for one-time payment ($362, 95% CI: 293-432, p < 0.001), suggesting that survivors may prefer monthly payments. Several factors, including being female and in better health, predicted higher WTP. Many AYA cancer survivors report not visiting their doctors annually for post-treatment care despite verbally valuing care. Models that demonstrate high quality and distribute costs over time should be evaluated to encourage survivors to receive recommended care.

As Ações Revisionais do FGTS: Aspectos, Requisitos e Potenciais Decisões

O Fundo de Garantia por tempo de Serviço (FGTS) instituído em 1966, através da Lei 5.107 e atualmente ditado pela Lei 8.036/90, é um fundo dotado de cunho social custeando o sistema de habitação e infraestrutura como formas principais, bem como atendendo ao trabalhador em desamparo. A todo recolhimento mensal, custeado pelo empregador ao empregado celetista, esta conta vinculada e compulsória mantida na Caixa Econômica Federal sofre atualizações pela Taxa Referencial (TR) acrescida de juro médio anual de 3%. Desde o ano de 1999 o saldo do FGTS vem sofrendo com baixas na TR, diminuída pelas premissas de seu cálculo face a redução gradativa da taxa Selic, não atingindo nem mesmo o montante inflacionário em alguns períodos, acarretando perdas aos trabalhadores, sendo origem e motivo de enorme volume de demandas no Judiciário com o objetivo de evitar esta corrosão a sua propriedade. Merece o tema explanação e explicação sob os fundamentos e argumentos levantados pelos trabalhadores, evidenciando seus aspectos com a apreciação de potenciais decisões acerca do tema que se apresenta na atualidade.

Household Solid Waste Generation and Stakeholders’ Attitude towards its Management in Habiganj, Bangladesh

Improper solid waste management is one of the causes of environmental degradation in the developing countries like Bangladesh which results uncollected waste on roads and public places. The objective of the study was to quantify and characterize household solid waste (HSW) as well as to observe the stakeholders' attitudes towards its management in Habiganj for the formulation of frame work for sustainable solid waste management. The study was carried out in Habiganj Municipality with structured questionnaire including some attitudinal questions. Fifty two (52) households were randomly selected and daily wastes from the households were collected, segregated and weighed to quantify and characterize the waste. Waste generation rate was found 1.15 kg/(hh·d) and 0.25 kg/(person·d). Generation of waste varied low to high income groups ranging from 0.76 to 1.71 kg/(hh·d). Families with more individuals and high educational level generated a larger quantity of solid waste per day. High percentage of organic waste was found in HSW. The majority of the stakeholders (65%) were taken waste disposal service from a local organization and 55% of them were found to be satisfied. Most of the respondents (65%) thought that the municipality is the responsible body for SW management. As the authority couldn't able to manage their wastes properly, the majority of stakeholders felt their interests to pay willingly to community-based organization (CBO) on monthly payment basis. Finally, the authors proposed a framework for sustainable management of solid waste through CBO which will facilitate the responsible policy makers of Bangladesh for planning and executing protocols.

Impact of Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty Programme in Ghana: The Case of Wa West District

It still remains an unanswered puzzle, why poverty in the three northern regions of Ghana remains very high in the midst of abundant resources and several policy interventions. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the extent to which the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) has improved welfare and reduced poverty in the Wa West District of Ghana. Arguing through the lens of the rights-based theoretical perspective, the study employed the difference-in-difference analytical technique to compare the extent to which poverty in the district has been lessened among beneficiaries of the LEAP programme against non-beneficiaries. The results show that the LEAP programme had a positive impact on food security as LEAP beneficiaries were more satisfied with their food consumption as compared to non-beneficiaries. Also there was a significant difference between the percentages of LEAP beneficiaries enrolled onto the NHIS as compared to non-beneficiaries. On the effect of the LEAP programme on access to credit, the study reveals that there exists a significant difference between the beneficiary group and non-beneficiary group and that access to credit amongst the beneficiary group is significantly higher than the non-beneficiary group. The study finds no statistically significant relationship between the LEAP beneficiary group and the non-beneficiary group in terms of productive activities. However, low monthly cash transfers; irregular monthly payment, bureaucratic administrative procedures are some of the challenges hindering the success of the LEAP program in the Wa West district. Other policy implications are discussed.

Student debt and hardship: Evidence from a large sample of low- and moderate-income households

Student debt has risen in recent years as higher education costs have shifted to students and their families, particularly those with low-to-moderate incomes (LMI). Though a college degree continues to convey higher earnings, those who finance their degrees have lower net worth and greater financial difficulties than persons without student debt. We assess the relationship between student debt and material and health care hardship among a large sample (n=5558) of LMI tax filers, using propensity score analysis to adjust for self-selection into student debt status and loan amount and monthly payment quartiles. We find that participants with student debt have a higher likelihood of hardship. Loan amounts only partially predict hardship, and borrowers making current loan payments are at lower odds for hardship than non-payers. We also find that among those with student debt, non-payers and those without college degrees have much greater social and economic disadvantages.