Expert Imitation in P2P Markets

Ge Gao, Mustafa Caglayan (), Yuelei Li () and Oleksandr Talavera ()
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Yuelei Li: Tianjin University

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Birmingham

Abstract: This paper investigates expert bidding imitation in peer-to-peer lending platforms. We employ data from Renrendai.com, which contains information about 169,779 investors who placed 3,947,996 bids on 111,284 loan listings from 2010 to 2018. The experts are defined as investors who either have more central roles or who spend more time or money on the network. We find that an average investor mimics the bids of expert lenders. Inactive lenders learn top investors' lending behaviour through observational learning and then follow their actions, although they do not know the experts' identity. Finally, we show that experts rarely imitate other experts, yet they exhibit herding behaviour.

Keywords: Peer-to-Peer Lending; Network Analysis; Expert Imitation; Big Data; Financial Technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G21 G40 G41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-big and nep-pay
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https://repec.cal.bham.ac.uk/pdf/20-10.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Expert imitation in P2P markets (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bir:birmec:20-10

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