Topic：Online finance and investor's risk awareness: evidence from peer-to-peer platform's trading data

Date: December 22, 2017

Time: 1:30 - 3:00 p.m. 

Venue: Meeting room 106B，Zhonghui Building

Speaker: Chen Zhao, Fudan University

ABOUT CHEN ZHAO

Prof. Chen Zhao, born in January 1973 in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, works in Fudan University since November 2007, and is now a doctoral supervisor and Executive Deputy Director of China Center for Economic Research in Fudan University. He once entered the State Class Persons of National Talents Engineering of Ministry of Personnel of China, Dawn Scholars of Shanghai, and New Century Talent Supporting Project of Ministry of Education, and gained special government allowances of the State Council. His research topic is Chinese economy (applied microeconomics ). He now focuses on the study of industrial policy, urban, rural and regional development, and environmental pollution. His research papers has been published in authorized academic journals both in and abroad like Journal of Comparative Economics, Review of Income and Wealth, Pacific Economic Review, Economic Research, Social Sciences in China, and Management World. He also serves as anonymous reviewers for China Economic Review, European Economic Review, International Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, World Development, and World Economy. 

ABSTRACT

For the first time, this paper uses the operation data from 580 peer-to-peer online lending platforms to certify that online lending platforms do try to attract new investments by issuing finance products with higher interest rate and faster repayment when they are faced with financial problems. This phenomenon often appears in those unqualified lending platforms. Meantime, we find that investors' behaviors reveal their risk awareness: on the one hand, high interest rate makes investors reduce their investments (especially in those unqualified platforms); on the other hand, they tend to be more cautious as more online lending platforms go wrong. This research results provide new ideas for the regulation of online lending platforms in the future, and also show that investors possess certain risk awareness in the emerging and poorly regulated industry - peer-to-peer online lending platforms.