Tim Zhang | Searcharxiv

arXiv2025

Demand and consumer surplus in the payday-loan market: Evidence from British Columbia

This study examines how interest rate caps affect the demand for payday loans, using aggregate data from British Columbia (2012--2019) during which the province's maximum fee was reduced from $23 to $17 and then to \$15 per $100 borrowed. Estimating a linear demand function via OLS, we find that lowering interest rate caps significantly increases loan demand. We estimate that the $8 decrease, from $23 to $15 per $100, raised annual consumer surplus by roughly $28.6 million (2012 CAD). A further reduction to $14, starting in January 2025, would add another $3.9 million per year. These results suggest that stricter interest rate caps can yield substantial consumer welfare gains.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2022

Toward A Formalized Approach for Spike Sorting Algorithms and Hardware Evaluation

Spike sorting algorithms are used to separate extracellular recordings of neuronal populations into single-unit spike activities. The development of customized hardware implementing spike sorting algorithms is burgeoning. However, there is a lack of a systematic approach and a set of standardized evaluation criteria to facilitate direct comparison of both software and hardware implementations. In this paper, we formalize a set of standardized criteria and a publicly available synthetic dataset entitled Synthetic Simulations Of Extracellular Recordings (SSOER), which was constructed by aggregating existing synthetic datasets with varying Signal-To-Noise Ratios (SNRs). Furthermore, we present a benchmark for future comparison, and use our criteria to evaluate a simulated Resistive Random-Access Memory (RRAM) In-Memory Computing (IMC) system using the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) for feature extraction. Our system consumes approximately (per channel) 10.72mW and occupies an area of 0.66mm$^2$ in a 22nm FDSOI Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) process.

cs.LG↗