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The Role of Punctuation in the P2P Lending Market
Xiao Chen, Bihong Huang, Dezhu Ye, Apr 04, 2018Using data from Renrendai, one of the largest P2P lending platforms in China, we investigate how the amount of punctuation used in loan descriptions influences the funding probability, borrowing rate, and default. The empirical evidence shows that the amount of punctuation is negatively associated with the funding probability and borrowing rate. We propose that the usage of punctuation affects the readability of a loan description and reflects borrowers’ self-control and cognitive ability.
Housing Booms and Shirking
Quanlin Gu, Jia He, Wenlan Qian, Oct 03, 2018Our research studies the incentive costs of China’s housing booms . We use the type and actual time stamps of 9.3 million credit card transactions by over 200,000 cardholders to detect non-work-related behavior during work hours. Employees respond to positive house price shocks with an immediate and permanent increase in their propensity to use work hours to attend to personal needs. Our estimate implies an elasticity of shirking propensity with respect to house price of 1.6. The effect is driven by homeowners, especially among owners with higher housing wealth. Further analyses point to negative productivity implications of the increased shirking.
Does China’s Place-Based Land Policy Lead to Spatial Misallocation?
Min Fang, Libin Han, Zibin Huang, Ming Lu, Li Zhang, Nov 17, 2021After 2003, the Chinese central government implemented an inland-favoring land supply policy that distributed more construction land quotas to underdeveloped non-eastern regions. We investigate the effect of the policy and find that it drastically increased land and housing prices in more-developed eastern regions, which consequently created substantial spatial misallocation of land and labor. The policy seems to reduce regional output gaps; however, it hurt...
Spillovers in Childbearing Decisions and Fertility Transitions: Evidence from China
Pauline Rossi, Yun Xiao, Mar 24, 2021To what extent and through which mechanisms are couples influenced by others when choosing their own family size? Recent research exploits exemptions in China’s family planning policies to show that conformism and competition drove the diffusion of small families, and hence accelerated the fertility transition in China.
Internal Capital Markets in Business Groups and the Propagation of Credit Supply Shocks
Yu Shi, Robert Townsend, Wu Zhu, Sep 25, 2019Using business registry data from China, we show that internal capital markets in business groups can propagate corporate shareholders' credit supply shocks to their subsidiaries. An average of 16.7% local bank credit growth where corporate shareholders are located would increase subsidiaries investment by 1% of their tangible fixed asset value, which accounts for 71% (7%) of the median (average) investment rate among these firms...
