Search results

AbstractOnline peer‐to‐peer (P2P) platforms both disclose and conceal borrowers' information. Minimal research has been conducted on the impact of concealing such information on borrowers' funding success. We fill this research gap by exploring a natural experiment opportunity at Prosper, an online lending marketplace where the platform enacted a policy to conceal borrowers' past failure history. We first find that the platform's decision to conceal such information can be rational because when this information was publicly available, borrowers with past failures had lower success rates than borrowers without past failures. We next investigate the effect of hiding this information on lenders' lending decisions. Our empirical results from a series of analyses demonstrate that concealing such information helps some borrowers but also surprisingly leads to an overall lower success rate, which ultimately harms the platform and runs counter to the platform's intention. These effects are strongest for low‐risk borrowers and would attenuate in the long run. We further find that the number of borrowers' past failures is associated with lower repayment ability.

In recent years, China has taken steps to promote sustainable growth, with greater reliance on market mechanisms and institutions that facilitate orderly macroeconomic controls. The International Monetary Fund has been assisting the authorities in this endeavor. IMF participation has been particularly active in various fiscal areas such as tax policy, tax administration, budget management processes and the budget law, and fiscal relations between different levels of government