This paper studies the spatial relationship between traditional banking services (Banks) and alternative financial service providers (AFSPs). The main objective is to test the so-called spatial void hypothesis that AFSPs tend to locate in markets where traditional banking services are...

Many consumers use alternative financial service providers (AFSPs)—such as check cashing outlets, payday lenders, and pawnshops—to conduct some of their financial transactions. However, the fees for these services tend to be higher than those charged at mainstream financial institutions. One...

Biographical note: Susan M. Wachter is Richard B. Worley Professor of Financial Management and Professor of Real Estate and Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Professor of City and Regional Planning at PennDesign. She codirects the Penn Institute for Urban...

We propose a statistical index of industrial localization based on the Kullback-Leibler divergence. This index is particularly well suited to cases where industrial data are available only at the regional level. Unlike existing regional-level indices, our index can be employed to test the...