Economic and Regional Determinants of the Location of Payday Lenders and Banking Institutions in Mississippi: Reconsidering the Role of Race and Other Factors in Firm Location

Using data for Mississippi, this paper revisits Burkey and Simkins’ (2004) work on factors determining the number of payday lenders and banks. With data at two levels of geographic aggregation, the paper discovers whether empirical results are robust and allows for uncertainty in geographic definition of markets. Demand factors of population, income, and wealth have important impacts. Percentage of population with college education depresses numbers of payday lenders. Evidence indicates that banks are less likely to locate in African American areas, but the results show that race is neither a positive nor a statistically significant determinant of location for payday lenders.