Who Borrows Money from Microloan Platform? - Evidence from Campus E-card

摘要

As the microloan becomes popular with the advance of information technology, the assessment of credit risk and understanding borrowers become crucial. However, without antithetical individuals, the prediction of loan probability and risk control cannot be so accurate. As an important consumption group in current commercial society, college students usually don't have enough disposable income thus very likely become active lenders in microloan platforms. For microloan platforms, a vital question is how to distinguish the individuals who use the loans for the right purposes. In this study, we combine the student loan data from a microloan platform with student daily consumption data recorded by a campus e-card system to examine the change of consumption behavior for those students who borrowed money from the microloan platform. Our study finds that students with loan do have distinct consumption patterns for both long and short terms. Furthermore, by applying a difference-in-difference regression method, we find significant increases in both consumption frequency and money after students borrow money from the microloan platform for both long and short terms. Our research enriches the literature on microloan in the context of college students as consumers.