@inproceedings{ba07087b951142878fd6e0daa6f953f3,
title = "The role of online peer-to-peer lending in crisis response: Evidence from kiva",
abstract = "Online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, a new form of microfinance, has been touted as to its prominent potential for reducing world poverty. Although a growing body of IS research has been devoted to examining online P2P lending, how such platforms actually make a difference in curbing poverty has yet to be fully explored. The Ebola outbreak of 2014 provides us a unique empirical opportunity to explore such broader impacts of online P2P lending. Leveraging this event as a natural experiment, we investigate how the demand and supply sides of P2P lending platforms react to an unpredictable crisis. Employing a difference-in-difference identification strategy with data from Kiva.org, we conduct country- and loan-level estimations. Preliminary results show upward trends on both demand and supply sides of P2P lending; borrowers request more financial capital and lenders are more active in their lending behaviors in the post-crisis period. We extend online P2P lending literature by investigating the influences of {"}off-platform{"} shocks on within-platform behaviors.",
keywords = "Crisis response, Difference-in-difference, Online microfinance, Online peer-to-peer lending, Prosocial behavior",
author = "Lusi Yang and Zhiyi Wang and Yi Ding and Jungpil Hahn",
year = "2016",
language = "English (US)",
series = "2016 International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2016",
publisher = "Association for Information Systems",
booktitle = "2016 International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2016",
note = "2016 International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2016 ; Conference date: 11-12-2016 Through 14-12-2016",
}