This study examines the predictive power of self-disclosed social media information on borrowers’ default in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and identifies social deterrence as a new underlying mechanism that explains the predictive power. Using a unique data set that combines loan data from a large P2P lending platform with social media presence data from a popular social media site, borrowers’ self-disclosure of their social media account and their social media activities are shown to predict borrowers’ default probability. Leveraging a social media marketing campaign that increases the credibility of the P2P platform and lenders disclosing loan default information on borrowers’ social media accounts as a natural experiment, a difference-in-differences analysis finds a significant decrease in loan default rate and increase in default repayment probability after the event, indicating that borrowers are deterred by potential social stigma. The results suggest that borrowers’ social information can be used not only for credit screening but also for default reduction and debt collection.

Journal of Medical Internet Research - International Scientific Journal for Medical Research, Information and Communication on the Internet

With the aging of the population and the upgrading of the consumption structure of national health demand in China, it has become a new trend for the public to actively seek health products and services on social networks. Based on the theory of reasoned behavior and the theory of expectancy confirmation, this study aims to analyze the cognitive factors and their effects on WeChat users’ purchase intention in the process of health product consumption. Considering that safety is a key feature of health products that distinguishes them from other consumer products, the “satisfaction” concept in the expectancy confirmation model is replaced by “trust” in this study. Two hundred and two (202) valid samples were collected by a questionnaire survey to analyze their intentions to buy health products on WeChat. Theoretical models and corresponding research hypotheses were verified by structural equation modeling. The research results show that emotional price and emotional experience are positively correlated with trust and purchase intention. There is an obvious negative correlation between privacy invasion and trust. Expectation confirmation is positively associated with trust. Moreover, the intermediary test shows that trust has completely mediated between emotional price and purchase intention, and trust also has a full intermediary effect on expectation confirmation and purchase intention.

China, Russia, and India are playing an increasingly important role in global nanotechnology research and development (R&D). This paper comparatively inspects the paper and patent publications by these three countries in the Thomson Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI) database and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database (1976–2007). Bibliographic, content map, and citation network analyses are used to evaluate country productivity, dominant research topics, and knowledge diffusion patterns. Significant and consistent growth in nanotechnology papers are noted in the three countries. Between 2000 and 2007, the average annual growth rate was 31.43% in China, 11.88% in Russia, and 33.51% in India. During the same time, the growth patterns were less consistent in patent publications: the corresponding average rates are 31.13, 10.41, and 5.96%. The three countries’ paper impact measured by the average number of citations has been lower than the world average. However, from 2000 to 2007, it experienced rapid increases of about 12.8 times in China, 8 times in India, and 1.6 times in Russia. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) were the most productive institutions in paper publication, with 12,334, 6,773, and 1,831 papers, respectively. The three countries emphasized some common research topics such as “Quantum dots,” “Carbon nanotubes,” “Atomic force microscopy,” and “Scanning electron microscopy,” while Russia and India reported more research on nano-devices as compared with China. CAS, RAS, and IIT played key roles in the respective domestic knowledge diffusion.