Experiments in Financial Markets

Zhengyang graduated from Monash University and yet to become a Assistant Professor at Xiamen University. His research interest is applying the experimental methods to study economic and financial interactions.

We apply the experimental methods to study the gender differences in the financial markets and the effectiveness of financial regulations. We follow 58,345 borrowers from a peer-to-peer lending platform to study how women and men react to enforcement mechanisms differently. In the experiment, borrowers are randomized into treatments where they receive different text messages urging for timely repayment if they have loans due the next day. Compared to a reminder message, the messages inducing social pressures and financial incentives reduce the overdue rate for both genders. However, women are more responsive to messages producing social pressures, while men are more responsive to financial incentives. The results imply the potential importance of a gender-dependent mechanism to enhance compliance.