
Tom Miller
SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW
Tom Miller, Jr. is a Senior Research Fellow at Consumers’ Research. He is a Professor of Finance and inaugural holder of the Jack R. Lee Chair in Financial Institutions and Consumer Finance at Mississippi State University. With its focus on Consumer Finance, notably installment credit products, the Lee Chair is the first of its kind. He currently serves as a member of the Academic Research Council at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Professor Miller has several ongoing research projects on various topics in small-dollar loans. His current research now includes projects on payday loans and on small-dollar installment loans.
Miller is a frequent speaker at national conferences and conventions. His overall topics generally focus on the value to consumers of maintaining access to small-dollar credit products, the value of competition in small-dollar credit products, and educating policymakers about how small-dollar credit products work.
Miller has had, and maintains, a long-standing interest in derivative securities and investments. He has published numerous scholarly peer-reviewed articles on various topics in derivative securities. In addition, he is the author of How Do Small-Dollar Nonbank Loans Work? and co-author (with Bradford D. Jordan and Steve Dolvin) of Fundamentals of Investments: Valuation and Management, 9th ed. (McGraw-Hill/Irwin). He is also co-author (with David Dubofsky) of Derivatives: Valuation and Risk Management (Oxford University Press).
Miller received his Ph.D. in finance from the University of Washington (Seattle) and his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in applied economics from Montana State University. In his off hours, he enjoys playing jazz and blues on the tenor saxophone.
Latest from Tom Miller
The CFPB’s Approach to Regulating Payday Lending: A Discussion with Todd J. Zywicki and Thomas Miller
Profs. Zywicki and Miller have co-authored a soon-to-be published study, “The Effects on Consumers from Two State-Level Regulations of the Payday Loan Market,” in which they analyzed 15.6 million storefront payday loans made to 1.8 million unique borrowers in 2013 to determine whether the number of loans a consumer takes in a year is a meaningful assessment of consumer welfare.
It’s Time to Do Right By the College Athletes Who Entertain Us
On January 10th, the Georgia Bulldogs won the FBS National Championship over the Alabama Crimson Tide. More than 67,000 paying fans attended, and millions more watched on ESPN. It’s the Big Time.
The CFPB’s Arbitrary Attacks on Payday Loans
The new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, has started rattling his interventionist saber only two months after his Senate confirmation. From pushing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to block bank mergers to attacking bank overdraft fees, Mr. Chopra is moving aggressively.
Student-Athletes Deserve 10-Year Scholarships
On June 21, the Supreme Court ruled that the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s strict limits on compensation for student-athletes violated antitrust law. The door is now open for college athletes to license their names, images and likenesses.
Consumers’ Research Senior Research Fellow Professor Tom Miller To Testify Before Senate Banking Committee
Consumers’ Research Senior Fellow Professor Tom Miller, Jr. will testify before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs at 10:00 A.M. Thursday, July 29.
Will Biden’s CFPB Nominee Run a Research-Focused Agency?
Why is the Senate allowing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to drift away from Senator Elizabeth Warren’s original vision of a data-driven agency “with research at the core of all of its work?” Prudent regulators should not make policy based on mere beliefs, or on the findings of one or two studies.
State Laws Can Give Consumers More Loan Choices
Changing state laws can invite competition into the small-dollar loan landscape.
Tom Miller’s joint comment letter with Beau Brunson on the CFPB’s proposed payday, vehicle title, and certain high-cost installment loans
All financial regulations should be grounded firmly in empirical research. The reach of federal rules is too large not to proceed with extreme care and caution, particularly if rules disproportionately affect economically vulnerable Americans.