Trust and Trustworthiness in Online Credit Markets

摘要

This project examines the role of ability and reliability in assessments of trustworthiness. Specifically, we use data from the lending website Prosper.com, an online marketplace for "peer-to-peer" lending, where potential borrowers post loan requests, and other individuals bid to loan all or part of the dollar amount requested. We examine how signals of financial ability to repay interact with signals of socially defined reliability to effect individual borrowing rates on Prosper.com.