Does team competition increase pro-social lending? Evidence from online microfinance
Roy Chen,
Yan Chen,
Yang Liu and
Qiaozhu Mei
Games and Economic Behavior, 2017, vol. 101, issue C, 311-333
Abstract:
We investigate the effects of team competition on pro-social lending activity on Kiva.org, the first microlending website to match lenders with entrepreneurs in developing countries. Using naturally occurring field data, we find that lenders who join teams contribute 1.2 more loans ($30–$42) per month than those who do not. To further explore factors that differentiate successful teams from dormant ones, we run a large-scale randomized field experiment (n=22,233) by posting forum messages. Compared to the control, we find that lenders make significantly more loans when exposed to a goal-setting and coordination message, whereas goal-setting alone significantly increases lending activities of previously inactive teams. Our findings suggest that goal-setting and coordination are effective mechanisms to increase pro-social behavior in teams.
Keywords: Social identity; Pro-social lending; Microfinance; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 C93 D64 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825615000202
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
Working Paper: Does team competition increase pro-social lending? Evidence from online microfinance (2014) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:101:y:2017:i:c:p:311-333
DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2015.02.001
Access Statistics for this article
Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai
More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().