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An Economic Investigation Of Rent-To-Own Agreements, Michael H. Anderson

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Rent-to-own (RTO) allows immediate access to goods without a credit check and provides an opportunity for eventual acquisition. Yet goods can be returned at any point without penalty or other adverse financial consequence. RTO is attractive to financially distressed consumers due to its ready availability as well as the options embedded in the contract. These options include the ability to cancel, early purchase, reinstate following a consumer return, and, possibly, choose the frequency of payments. In this article, a body of research on RTO is brought together and summarized. The bulk of this work is empirical, applying statistical techniques to …