IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bofitp/bdp2021_014.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

FinTech adoption and household risk-taking

Author

Listed:
  • Hong, Claire Yurong
  • Lu, Xiaomeng
  • Pan, Jun

Abstract

Using a unique FinTech data containing monthly individual-level consumption, investments, and payments, we examine how FinTech can lower investment barriers and improve risk-taking. Seizing on the rapid expansion of offline usages of Alipay in China, we measure individuals' FinTech adoption by the speed and intensity with which they adopt the new technology. Our hypothesis is that individuals with high FinTech adoption, through repeated usages of the Alipay app, would build familiarity and trust, reducing the psychological barriers against investing in risky assets. Measuring risktaking by individuals' mutual-fund investments on the FinTech platform, we find that higher FinTech adoption results in higher participation and more risk-taking. Using the distance to Hangzhou as an instrument variable to capture the exogenous variation in FinTech adoption yields results of similar economic and statistical significance. Focusing on the welfare-improving aspect of FinTech inclusion, we find that individuals with high risk tolerance, hence more risk-taking capacity, and those living in under-banked cities stand to benefit more from the advent of FinTech.

Suggested Citation

  • Hong, Claire Yurong & Lu, Xiaomeng & Pan, Jun, 2021. "FinTech adoption and household risk-taking," BOFIT Discussion Papers 14/2021, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bofitp:bdp2021_014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/249603/1/dp1421.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Choi, James J. & Laibson, David & Metrick, Andrew, 2002. "How does the Internet affect trading? Evidence from investor behavior in 401(k) plans," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 397-421, June.
    2. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani & Kaveh Majlesi, 2020. "Stock Market Returns and Consumption," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(6), pages 3175-3219, December.
    3. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2007. "Down or Out: Assessing the Welfare Costs of Household Investment Mistakes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 707-747, October.
    4. Suri, Tavneet & Bharadwaj, Prashant & Jack, William, 2021. "Fintech and household resilience to shocks: Evidence from digital loans in Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2008. "Trusting the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2557-2600, December.
    6. John Ameriks & Gábor Kézdi & Minjoon Lee & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2020. "Heterogeneity in Expectations, Risk Tolerance, and Household Stock Shares: The Attenuation Puzzle," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 633-646, July.
    7. Laurent E. Calvet & Paolo Sodini, 2014. "Twin Picks: Disentangling the Determinants of Risk-Taking in Household Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 867-906, April.
    8. Maarten Meeuwis & Jonathan A. Parker & Antoinette Schoar & Duncan Simester, 2022. "Belief Disagreement and Portfolio Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(6), pages 3191-3247, December.
    9. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Measuring the Financial Sophistication of Households," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 393-398, May.
    10. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1991. "The consumption of stockholders and nonstockholders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 97-112, March.
    11. Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang & G Andrew Karolyi, 2019. "To FinTech and Beyond," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1647-1661.
    12. Claire Yurong Hong & Xiaomeng Lu & Jun Pan, 2019. "FinTech Platforms and Mutual Fund Distribution," NBER Working Papers 26576, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Calvet, Laurent E. & Campbell, John Y & Gomes, Francisco & Sodini, Paolo, 2021. "The Cross-Section of Household Preferences," CEPR Discussion Papers 16105, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. J. Tobin, 1958. "Liquidity Preference as Behavior Towards Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 25(2), pages 65-86.
    15. Jon Frost & Leonardo Gambacorta & Yi Huang & Hyun Song Shin & Pablo Zbinden, 2019. "BigTech and the changing structure of financial intermediation," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 34(100), pages 761-799.
    16. Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon & Bernasek, Alexandra, 1998. "Are Women More Risk Averse?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(4), pages 620-630, October.
    17. Calvet, Laurent E. & Célérier, Claire & Vallee, Boris, 2020. "Can Security Design Foster Household Risk-Taking?," CEPR Discussion Papers 14955, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Haliassos, Michael & Bertaut, Carol C, 1995. "Why Do So Few Hold Stocks?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(432), pages 1110-1129, September.
    19. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:1:p:137-163 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Bogan, Vicki, 2008. "Stock Market Participation and the Internet," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 191-211, March.
    21. C. Badarinza & V. Balasubramaniam & T. Ramadorai, 2019. "The Household Finance Landscape in Emerging Economies," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 109-129, December.
    22. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2002. "Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 455-488, March.
    23. Charlotte Christiansen & Juanna Schröter Joensen & Jesper Rangvid, 2008. "Are Economists More Likely to Hold Stocks?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(3), pages 465-496.
    24. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel & Stephen Utkus, 2021. "Five Facts about Beliefs and Portfolios," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(5), pages 1481-1522, May.
    25. Benjamin Loos & Steffen Meyer & Michaela Pagel, 2020. "The Consumption Effects of the Disposition to Sell Winners and Hold Losers," NBER Working Papers 26668, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Bruce Carlin & Arna Olafsson & Michaela Pagel, 2017. "FinTech Adoption Across Generations: Financial Fitness in the Information Age," NBER Working Papers 23798, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Sunden, Annika E & Surette, Brian J, 1998. "Gender Differences in the Allocation of Assets in Retirement Savings Plans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 207-211, May.
    28. Merton, Robert C, 1969. "Lifetime Portfolio Selection under Uncertainty: The Continuous-Time Case," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 51(3), pages 247-257, August.
    29. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    30. Sumit Agarwal & Wenlan Qian, 2014. "Consumption and Debt Response to Unanticipated Income Shocks: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Singapore," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 4205-4230, December.
    31. Annette Vissing-Jørgensen & Orazio P. Attanasio, 2003. "Stock-Market Participation, Intertemporal Substitution, and Risk-Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 383-391, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lin, Aijie & Peng, Yulei & Wu, Xi, 2022. "Digital finance and investment of micro and small enterprises: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    2. Yang, Tong & Zhang, Xun, 2022. "FinTech adoption and financial inclusion: Evidence from household consumption in China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).

    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. repec:zbw:bofitp:2021_014 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Hong, Claire Yurong & Lu, Xiaomeng & Pan, Jun, 2021. "FinTech adoption and household risk-taking," BOFIT Discussion Papers 14/2021, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    3. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    4. Kaustia, Markku & Conlin, Andrew & Luotonen, Niilo, 2023. "What drives stock market participation? The role of institutional, traditional, and behavioral factors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    5. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    6. Barnea, Amir & Cronqvist, Henrik & Siegel, Stephan, 2010. "Nature or nurture: What determines investor behavior?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(3), pages 583-604, December.
    7. Sandra E Black & Paul J Devereux & Petter Lundborg & Kaveh Majlesi, 2018. "Learning to Take Risks? The Effect of Education on Risk-Taking in Financial Markets," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(3), pages 951-975.
    8. Briggs, Joseph & Cesarini, David & Lindqvist, Erik & Östling, Robert, 2021. "Windfall gains and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 57-83.
    9. Xiong, Qizhou, 2015. "Censored Fractional Response Model: Estimating Heterogeneous Relative Risk Aversion of European Households," IWH Discussion Papers 11/2015, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    10. Nicholas Apergis & Christos Bouras, 2023. "Household choices on investing in financial risky assets: Do national institutional factors have their own merit?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 405-420, January.
    11. E. Black, Sandra & J. Devereux, Paul & Lundborg, Etter & Majlesi, Kaveh, 2016. "No. 2015/2 :Learning to Take Risks? The Effects of Education on Risk-Taking in Finacial Markets," Knut Wicksell Working Paper Series 2015/2, Lund University, Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies.
    12. Wang, Yi & Niu, Geng & Zhou, Yang & Lu, Weijie, 2023. "Broadband internet and stock market participation," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    13. Hibbert, Ann Marie & Lawrence, Edward R. & Prakash, Arun J., 2013. "Does knowledge of finance mitigate the gender difference in financial risk-aversion?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 140-152.
    14. Dimmock, Stephen G. & Kouwenberg, Roy & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Peijnenburg, Kim, 2016. "Ambiguity aversion and household portfolio choice puzzles: Empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 559-577.
    15. Hellström, Jörgen & Stålnacke, Oscar & Olsson, Rickard, 2022. "Individuals’ financial risk-taking and peer influence," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-17.
    16. Mostafa Saidur Rahim Khan & Naheed Rabbani & Yoshihiko Kadoya, 2021. "Can Financial Literacy Explain Lack of Investment in Risky Assets in Japan?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-12, November.
    17. Katarzyna Kochaniak & Paweł Ulman, 2020. "Risk-Intolerant but Risk-Taking—Towards a Better Understanding of Inconsistent Survey Responses of the Euro Area Households," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-26, August.
    18. Ke, Da, 2024. "Left behind: Partisan identity, stock market participation, and wealth inequality," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    19. Hans K. Hvide & Tom G. Meling & Magne Mogstad & Ola L. Vestad, 2024. "Broadband Internet and the Stock Market Investments of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 2163-2194, June.
    20. Andreas Fagereng & Charles Gottlieb & Luigi Guiso, 2017. "Asset Market Participation and Portfolio Choice over the Life-Cycle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(2), pages 705-750, April.
    21. van Rooij, Maarten & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob, 2011. "Financial literacy and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 449-472, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    FinTech; Digital Payment; Financial Inclusion; Consumption; Risk Taking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G50 - Financial Economics - - Household 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:zbw:bofitp:bdp2021_014. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bofitfi.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.