Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/215433 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
SAFE Working Paper No. 273
Publisher: 
Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, Frankfurt a. M.
Abstract: 
We report the results of a longitudinal intervention with students across five universities in China designed to reduce online consumer debt. Our research design allocates individuals to either a financial literacy treatment, a self-control training program, or a zero-touch control group. Financial education interventions improve test scores on general financial literacy but only marginally affect future online borrowing. Our self-control treatment features detailed tracking of spending and borrowing activity with a third-party app and introspection about individuals' consumption with a counselor. These sessions reduce future online borrowing, delinquency charges, and borrowing for entertainment reasons - and are driven by the male subjects in the sample. Our results suggest that self-regulation can affect financial behavior in e-commerce platforms.
Subjects: 
Financial literacy
online borrowing
Consumer credit
Self-control
FinTech
China
JEL: 
G51
G53
D14
D18
G23
G21
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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