【 Webinar Series - Innovation, Productivity, and Challenges in the Digital Era: Asia and Beyond 】

Crowdsourcing Peer Information to Change Spending Behavior

Date: 7 Dec 2022 (Wed)

Time: 10am – 11:10am (Hong Kong Time, UTC+8)

Abstract: The authors isolate and quantify the information channel of peer effects using a unique consumption setting that by construction excludes any scope for common shocks or social pressure—a transaction-level panel dataset of spending paired with crowdsourced information about the spending of anonymous “peers” elicited at a different time than when users make their consumption choices. All consumers converge to their peers’ spending and more so when facing more informative peer signals, with the effect building up over time. The spending adjustments, though, are substantially larger for the overspenders, who close 37% of their spending gap within 12 months of using the platform. The effect for underspenders is 9% over 12 months. For identification, the authors exploit consumers’ quasi-random assignment to peer groups in an instrumental-variable strategy. Similar evidence from on a non-selected population provides external validity.

Speaker:

Alberto ROSSI
Professor of Finance, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University

Co-authors:

Francesco D'ACUNTO, James A. Clark Chair and Associate Professor of Finance, Georgetown University

Michael WEBER, Associate Professor of Finance, University of Chicago

Discussant:

Tianyue RUAN
Assistant Professor, Department of Finance, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore

Event Website: https://abfer.org/events/abfer-events/webinar-series/321:ws-ipc-20221207

About the Webinar

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, multilevel neural nets, the Internet of Things (IoT) and other digital technologies are transforming the world. They are strengthening innovation and productivity and innovation by rendering the future more predictable and reshaping individual, business, social, and government behavior. Asia leads the world in some of these endeavors, e.g., digital platforms. The OECD lists 40% of big new digital technologies as Asian. Almost half of global digital platform business-to-consumer revenues are Asian, versus only 22% from the U.S. and 12% from the Eurozone. Profound new policy challenges arising, in consequence, include: shifting skills demanded in labor markets and “digital divide” inequality, (ii) AI expanding financial inclusion or encoding inequality, expanding or obscuring accountability, increasing transparency or obscuring amoral decision-making, and (iii) digital privacy, unsanctionable on-line libel, misinformation, manipulation, and propaganda. The ABFER, therefore, plans a monthly e-seminar series spotlighting important new research, particularly the Asia-pacific related, into these issues and providing “state-of-the-art” overviews by prominent scholars. We hope policy makers and practitioners will find the e-seminars helpful and will alert researchers to issues needing attention.

Collaborating Organizers

ABFER, The Chinese University of Hong Kong-Zhejiang University Joint Research Center for Digital Economy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Department of Economics and Center for Internet Development and Governance, Fanhai International School of Finance (FISF), Fudan University, National Tsing Hua University College of Technology Management and Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management (Tsinghua SEM)