Information and Market Collapse: Insights from China’s P2P Investors

作者：Meng Miao, Yiling Ouyang, Chi Yao, Zheng‐Yu Zuo · 发表于：Emerging Markets Finance and Trade · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1080/1540496x.2025.2595064 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance、Financial Markets and Investment Strategies、Media Influence and Politics

Using a proprietary dataset from one of China’s top ten Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platforms covering the years 2013–2017, we examine investor bidding behavior with respect to borrower risks and six categories of platform-related news, employing time-series and panel regressions with macroeconomic controls and fixed effects. The results show that investors respond strongly to platform-related news while largely neglecting borrower risks. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that young, male, and experienced investors are most attentive to platform news. Investors’ capacity to gather and process information is limited by physical distance from borrowers and a lack of financial knowledge. Our results suggest that Chinese investors delegate credit screening to the P2P platforms, and the misalignment between investor perceptions and regulatory classification helps explain the collapse of China’s P2P market.