IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/han/dpaper/dp-683.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How do warnings affect retail demand for Bitcoin? Evidence from an international survey experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Ebers, Axel
  • Thomsen, Stephan L.

Abstract

Bitcoin is associated with different risks. We conduct an information experiment in the four largest European economies to analyze the effects of specific warnings and information on retail investors’ demand for Bitcoin. Our results indicate that the impact is strongest when warnings point to privacy issues. Information on the lack of guarantees or on CO2 emissions only affects particular subgroups. Knowledge of broad public acceptance increases overall demand. Warnings can therefore effectively prevent extreme market events while avoiding the costs of stricter regulation. Effect heterogeneity implies that regulators should use specific information and different communication channels to reach relevant investors.

Suggested Citation

  • Ebers, Axel & Thomsen, Stephan L., 2021. "How do warnings affect retail demand for Bitcoin? Evidence from an international survey experiment," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-683, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    • Handle: RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-683
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-683.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. da Gama Silva, Paulo Vitor Jordão & Klotzle, Marcelo Cabus & Pinto, Antonio Carlos Figueiredo & Gomes, Leonardo Lima, 2019. "Herding behavior and contagion in the cryptocurrency market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 41-50.
    2. Hsiang-Lin Chih & Hsiang-Hsuan Chih & Tzu-Yin Chen, 2010. "On the Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility: International Evidence on the Financial Industry," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 115-135, April.
    3. Annette Alstadsæter & Niels Johannesen & Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Tax Evasion and Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2073-2103, June.
    4. Chiang, Thomas C. & Zheng, Dazhi, 2010. "An empirical analysis of herd behavior in global stock markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1911-1921, August.
    5. Sheth, Jagdish, 2020. "Impact of Covid-19 on consumer behavior: Will the old habits return or die?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 280-283.
    6. Altman, Morris, 2012. "Behavioural economics perspectives: Implications for policy and financial literacy," Working Paper Series 2195, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    7. Manaa, Mehdi & Chimienti, Maria Teresa & Adachi, Mitsutoshi & Athanassiou, Phoebus & Balteanu, Irina & Calza, Alessandro & Devaney, Conall & Diaz Fernandez, Ester & Eser, Fabian & Ganoulis, Ioannis & , 2019. "Crypto-Assets: Implications for financial stability, monetary policy, and payments and market infrastructures," Occasional Paper Series 223, European Central Bank.
    8. Charles F. Manski, 2004. "Measuring Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1329-1376, September.
    9. Jay J. Van Bavel & Katherine Baicker & Paulo S. Boggio & Valerio Capraro & Aleksandra Cichocka & Mina Cikara & Molly J. Crockett & Alia J. Crum & Karen M. Douglas & James N. Druckman & John Drury & Oe, 2020. "Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(5), pages 460-471, May.
    10. Georgios A. Panos & Tatja Karkkainen & Adele Atkinson, 2020. "Financial Literacy and Attitudes to Cryptocurrencies," Working Papers 2020_26, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    11. Jeffrey R Kling & Jeffrey B Liebman & Lawrence F Katz, 2007. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 83-119, January.
    12. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    13. Elie Bouri & Mahamitra Das & Rangan Gupta & David Roubaud, 2018. "Spillovers between Bitcoin and other assets during bear and bull markets," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(55), pages 5935-5949, November.
    14. Ecopa Case, 2019. "Estimating International Tax Evasion by Individuals," Taxation Papers 76, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    15. June Ma & Joshua S. Gans & Rabee Tourky, 2018. "Market Structure in Bitcoin Mining," NBER Working Papers 24242, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    17. Alessandro Acquisti & Curtis Taylor & Liad Wagman, 2016. "The Economics of Privacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 442-492, June.
    18. Jentzsch, Nicola, 2016. "State-of-the-Art of the Economics of Cyber-Security and Privacy," EconStor Research Reports 126223, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    19. Nader Trabelsi, 2018. "Are There Any Volatility Spill-Over Effects among Cryptocurrencies and Widely Traded Asset Classes?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, October.
    20. Rainer Böhme & Nicolas Christin & Benjamin Edelman & Tyler Moore, 2015. "Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 213-238, Spring.
    21. Bindseil, Ulrich, 2020. "Tiered CBDC and the financial system," Working Paper Series 2351, European Central Bank.
    22. Camilo Mora & Randi L. Rollins & Katie Taladay & Michael B. Kantar & Mason K. Chock & Mio Shimada & Erik C. Franklin, 2018. "Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°C," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(11), pages 931-933, November.
    23. Sean Foley & Jonathan R Karlsen & Tālis J Putniņš, 2019. "Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin: How Much Illegal Activity Is Financed through Cryptocurrencies?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1798-1853.
    24. Altman, Morris, 2012. "Implications of behavioural economics for financial literacy and public policy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 677-690.
    25. Raphael Auer & Giulio Cornelli & Jon Frost, 2020. "Covid-19, cash, and the future of payments," BIS Bulletins 3, Bank for International Settlements.
    26. Baur, Dirk G. & Hong, KiHoon & Lee, Adrian D., 2018. "Bitcoin: Medium of exchange or speculative assets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 177-189.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ed Saiedi & Anders Broström & Felipe Ruiz, 2021. "Global drivers of cryptocurrency infrastructure adoption," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 353-406, June.
    2. repec:awi:wpaper:0690 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Yue, Yao & Li, Xuerong & Zhang, Dingxuan & Wang, Shouyang, 2021. "How cryptocurrency affects economy? A network analysis using bibliometric methods," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. repec:awi:wpaper:0703 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bohl, Martin T. & Branger, Nicole & Trede, Mark, 2017. "The case for herding is stronger than you think," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 30-40.
    6. Hanna Halaburda & Guillaume Haeringer & Joshua Gans & Neil Gandal, 2022. "The Microeconomics of Cryptocurrencies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 971-1013, September.
    7. Pegah Dehghani & Ros Zam Zam Sapian, 2014. "Sectoral herding behavior in the aftermarket of Malaysian IPOs," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 227-246, July.
    8. Saad, Mohsen & Samet, Anis, 2020. "Collectivism and commonality in liquidity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 137-162.
    9. Gębka, Bartosz & Wohar, Mark E., 2013. "International herding: Does it differ across sectors?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 55-84.
    10. Ferreruela, Sandra & Mallor, Tania, 2021. "Herding in the bad times: The 2008 and COVID-19 crises," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    11. Tihana Škrinjarić, 2018. "Revisiting Herding Investment Behavior on the Zagreb Stock Exchange: A Quantile Regression Approach," Econometric Research in Finance, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis, vol. 3(2), pages 119-162, December.
    12. Galariotis, Emilios C. & Rong, Wu & Spyrou, Spyros I., 2015. "Herding on fundamental information: A comparative study," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 589-598.
    13. Bennett, Donyetta & Mekelburg, Erik & Williams, T.H., 2023. "BeFi meets DeFi: A behavioral finance approach to decentralized finance asset pricing," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    14. Wang, Hu & Li, Shouwei & Ma, Yuyin, 2021. "Herding in Open-end Funds: Evidence from China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    15. Deng, Xin & Hung, Shengmin & Qiao, Zheng, 2018. "Mutual fund herding and stock price crashes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 166-184.
    16. Rehse, Dominik & Tremöhlen, Felix, 2020. "Fostering participation in digital public health interventions: The case of digital contact tracing," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-076, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    17. Esin Cakan & Riza Demirer & Rangan Gupta & Josine Uwilingiye, 2019. "Economic Policy Uncertainty and Herding Behavior Evidence from the South African Housing Market," Advances in Decision Sciences, Asia University, Taiwan, vol. 23(1), pages 88-113, March.
    18. Vidal-Tomás, David, 2021. "Transitions in the cryptocurrency market during the COVID-19 pandemic: A network analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    19. Adekoya, Oluwasegun B. & Oliyide, Johnson A., 2021. "How COVID-19 drives connectedness among commodity and financial markets: Evidence from TVP-VAR and causality-in-quantiles techniques," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    20. Gavriilidis, Konstantinos & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Tsalavoutas, Ioannis, 2016. "Investor mood, herding and the Ramadan effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(S), pages 23-38.
    21. Camara, Omar, 2017. "Industry herd behaviour in financing decision making," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 32-42.
    22. Jia, Boxiang & Shen, Dehua & Zhang, Wei, 2022. "Extreme sentiment and herding: Evidence from the cryptocurrency market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    survey experiment; warnings; Bitcoin; retail demand; regulation; cultural differences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G40 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:han:dpaper:dp-683. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Heidrich, Christian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwhande.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.