IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v58y2012i5p892-912.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rational Herding in Microloan Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Juanjuan Zhang

    () (MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142)

  • Peng Liu

    () (School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853)

Abstract

Microloan markets allow individual borrowers to raise funding from multiple individual lenders. We use a unique panel data set that tracks the funding dynamics of borrower listings on Prosper.com, the largest microloan market in the United States. We find evidence of rational herding among lenders. Well-funded borrower listings tend to attract more funding after we control for unobserved listing heterogeneity and payoff externalities. Moreover, instead of passively mimicking their peers (irrational herding), lenders engage in active observational learning (rational herding); they infer the creditworthiness of borrowers by observing peer lending decisions and use publicly observable borrower characteristics to moderate their inferences. Counterintuitively, obvious defects (e.g., poor credit grades) amplify a listing's herding momentum, as lenders infer superior creditworthiness to justify the herd. Similarly, favorable borrower characteristics (e.g., friend endorsements) weaken the herding effect, as lenders attribute herding to these observable merits. Follow-up analysis shows that rational herding beats irrational herding in predicting loan performance. This paper was accepted by Pradeep Chintagunta, marketing.

Suggested Citation

  • Juanjuan Zhang & Peng Liu, 2012. "Rational Herding in Microloan Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 892-912, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:58:y:2012:i:5:p:892-912
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1110.1459
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1110.1459
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anita Elberse & Jehoshua Eliashberg, 2003. "Demand and Supply Dynamics for Sequentially Released Products in International Markets: The Case of Motion Pictures," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(3), pages 329-354.
    2. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1999. "Distribution-free estimation of some nonlinear panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 77-97, May.
    3. Yongheng Deng & Peng Liu, 2009. "Mortgage Prepayment and Default Behavior with Embedded Forward Contract Risks in China’s Housing Market," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 214-240, April.
    4. Uri Simonsohn & Dan Ariely, 2008. "When Rational Sellers Face Nonrational Buyers: Evidence from Herding on eBay," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(9), pages 1624-1637, September.
    5. Ulrike Malmendier & Young Han Lee, 2011. "The Bidder's Curse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 749-787, April.
    6. Vuong, Quang H, 1989. "Likelihood Ratio Tests for Model Selection and Non-nested Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 307-333, March.
    7. Rachel Croson & Jen Shang, 2008. "The impact of downward social information on contribution decisions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 11(3), pages 221-233, September.
    8. Colin Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho, 1999. "Experience-weighted Attraction Learning in Normal Form Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 827-874, July.
    9. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    10. Anderson, Lisa R & Holt, Charles A, 1997. "Information Cascades in the Laboratory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 847-862, December.
    11. Martin Farnham & Lucie Schmidt & Purvi Sevak, 2011. "House Prices and Marital Stability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 615-619, May.
    12. Devin G. Pope & Justin R. Sydnor, 2011. "What’s in a Picture?: Evidence of Discrimination from Prosper.com," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(1), pages 53-92.
    13. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    14. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    15. Wilfred Amaldoss & Sanjay Jain, 2010. "Reference Groups and Product Line Decisions: An Experimental Investigation of Limited Editions and Product Proliferation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(4), pages 621-644, April.
    16. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    17. Iyer, Rajkamal & Khwaja, Asim Ijaz & Luttmer, Erzo F. P. & Shue, Kelly, 2009. "Screening in New Credit Markets: Can Individual Lenders Infer Borrower Creditworthiness in Peer-to-Peer Lending?," Working Paper Series rwp09-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    18. Bogaçhan Çelen & Shachar Kariv, 2004. "Distinguishing Informational Cascades from Herd Behavior in the Laboratory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 484-498, June.
    19. Peter N. Golder & Gerard J. Tellis, 2004. "Growing, Growing, Gone: Cascades, Diffusion, and Turning Points in the Product Life Cycle," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 207-218, December.
    20. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    21. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1985. "Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 424-440, June.
    22. Catherine Tucker & Juanjuan Zhang, 2011. "How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 828-842, May.
    23. Hongbin Cai & Yuyu Chen & Hanming Fang, 2009. "Observational Learning: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 864-882, June.
    24. Wesley Hartmann & Puneet Manchanda & Harikesh Nair & Matthew Bothner & Peter Dodds & David Godes & Kartik Hosanagar & Catherine Tucker, 2008. "Modeling social interactions: Identification, empirical methods and policy implications," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 287-304, December.
    25. Seth Freedman & Ginger Zhe Jin, 2008. "Do Social Networks Solve Information Problems for Peer-to-Peer Lending? Evidence from Prosper.com," Working Papers 08-43, NET Institute.
    26. Juanjuan Zhang, 2010. "The Sound of Silence: Observational Learning in the U.S. Kidney Market," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(2), pages 315-335, 03-04.
    27. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    28. Pradeep K. Chintagunta, 2001. "Endogeneity and Heterogeneity in a Probit Demand Model: Estimation Using Aggregate Data," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 442-456, December.
    29. J. Miguel Villas-Boas & Russell S. Winer, 1999. "Endogeneity in Brand Choice Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(10), pages 1324-1338, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:58:y:2012:i:5:p:892-912. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Matthew Walls). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.