Cultivating Self-Control in FinTech: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Online Consumer Borrowing

Abstract

We report the results of a longitudinal intervention with students across 5 universities in China designed to reduce online consumer debt. We allocate participants to either a financial literacy treatment group, a self-control treatment group, or a zero-touch control group. Our self-control training intervention features detailed tracking of spending and borrowing, budgeting, and introspection about consumption choices. This intervention reduces online borrowing and delinquency charges, mainly driven by a reduction in entertainment-related spending and borrowing. In contrast, financial literacy interventions improve test scores but only marginally affect borrowing. Our results suggest that cultivating self-regulation and budgeting skills can improve borrowing behavior on e-commerce platforms.

Economic Preferences during a Global Crisis: Evidence from Wuhan

“…From October 16, 2019 to October 18, 2019 we conducted a survey based experiment with master students at Wuhan University of Science and Technology (WUST). The survey was conducted primarily for a study on how beliefs about luck and superstition affect risk taking and investment behavior (Bu et al, 2020a). We administered the paper and pencil survey among 257 master's students in a classroom setting.…”

Chief Executive Officer Collectivism and Corporate Pollution Abatement Behavior: Evidence From Industrial Firms in China

“…Our study shows that CEOs’ individualistic cultural values from their hometowns shape corporate pollution abatement behaviors. Second, existing literature has examined the effects of pollution emission regulation on air pollution ( Henderson, 1996 ; Greenstone, 2004 ), industrial activity ( Becker and Henderson, 2000 ; Greenstone, 2002 ), plant births and deaths ( Henderson, 1996 ; Levinson, 1996 ; List et al, 2003 ), plant productivity ( Berman and Bui, 2001 ; Bu and Liao, 2021 ), and market structure ( Bu et al, 2021 ). This is the first study to systematically evaluate the implementation of China’s emission fee policy change on industrial firms’ pollution control.…”

Time Inconsistency and Overdraft Use: Evidence from Transaction Data and Behavioral Measurement Experiments

“…Overall, the relative importance of preference-based and information-based explanations for the effectiveness of policies aimed at improving financial decision-making still seems unclear. For example, Bertrand andMorse (2011), Carlin et al (2017), or Anderson and Robinson (2018), emphasize the role of information and attention, while studies like Meier and Sprenger (2012), Carvalho et al (2019), Bu et al (2021), Allcott et al (2021), or Levi and Benartzi (2021) indicate that differences in biased preferences -specifically time preferences -matter. Hence, further research incorporating our methodological approach of integrating comparative measures of different mechanisms seems warranted.…”