| P2P lending is a small and unsecured lending mode that happens among people directly in online Internet platform,without any financial intermediaries.Current empirical research on P2P lending mainly focused on two folds:1)Exploring the role of various information disclosed by borrowers,including hard information and soft information;2)Exploring the role of investor behavior,including other investors,investment behavior and the investors’ own previous investment experience.It is noteworthy that there are a large number of investors who have also borrowed money from the focal P2P lending platform in the current P2P lending market,i.e.,two-way traders.However,few researchers have systematically investigated the investment behavior of two-way traders in P2P lending platforms,thus failing to accurately understand how investors’ investment ability is formed and further to protect the legitimate interests of investors.Motivated by these observations,this study attempts to compare the performance of investment order of two-way traders before and after borrowing to confirm the existence of learning effect based on the lender-borrower role conversion in P2P lending market.This study also explores where the role conversion-based learning effect comes from.Furthermore;this study segments the two-way traders according to gender,age and education level,and then compares the learning effect sizes in these different groups of two-way traders in P2P lending market.This study chooses the transaction data of two-way traders in Renrendai.com as the research samples.Empirical results indicate that after borrowing on the focal P2P platform,investors will experience less risk of investment orders than before,suggesting the existence of role conversion-based learning effect.In particular,the learning effect mainly comes from their failed borrowing experience,rather than successful borrowing experience.Results also show that the learning effect of male investors from borrowing experience is stronger than that of female investors.Role conversion-based learning effect exists for investors who have bachelor degree or below,wherein those with a bachelor degree have the strongest learning effects from borrowing experience,and the learning effect does not exist for investors who have a master or higher degree.For investors at different ages,after borrowing on the focal P2P platform,the older investors prefer orders with lower potential default rate,and the younger investors prefer orders with higher Success rate.This study contributes to both research and practice.For the theoretical research,this study focuses on and demonstrates the existence of role conversion-based learning effect in P2P lending market,and further investigates how the learning effect is formed and what differences among different investors.As such,this study will add new knowledge to current understanding of learning theory in P2P lending market,and provide a timely and new reference to explain how investor’s investing ability is formed and improved.In addition,this study also contributes to providing theoretical and practical guidance for investor protection in P2P lending market. |
