讲座题目：Monitoring Fintech Firms: Evidence from the Collapse of Peer-to-Peer Lending Platforms监管金融科技企业：来自P2P贷款平台崩溃的证据

主讲人：胡荣 香港中文大学商学院 助理教授

讲座地点：经管院A208

讲座时间：2023年6月26日10:30-12:30

讲座内容摘要：

In recent years, numerous Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms have collapsed, prompting us to investigate the regulation and monitoring of the fintech industry. Using a unique dataset of P2P lending platforms in China, we examine the effect of information environment on regulatory monitoring and platform collapse. Exploiting platforms’ locational proximity to regulatory offices as a proxy for information asymmetry which leads to more lax regulatory monitoring, we show that greater geographical distance results in higher likelihood of platform collapse. Specifically, for every 1% increase in the driving distance from the platform to the local regulatory office, the likelihood of collapse increases by 1.011%. To establish causality that proximity enhances monitoring quality which in turn reduces platform failures, we conduct a difference-in-differences analysis that exploits two exogenous shocks: government office relocation and subway station openings. We further explore two underlying channels: (1) the information channel through which greater regulatory distance reduces the likelihood and frequency of regulators’ on-site visits and (2) the resource-constraint channel, through which greater regulatory distance significantly increases the local regulatory office’s monitoring costs. Overall, this study highlights the importance of the acquisition of soft information for regulatory monitoring to ensure the viability of fintech firms.

近年来，许多中国点对点贷款平台倒闭，促使我们调查金融科技行业的监管问题。利用中国P2P借贷平台的独特数据集，我们研究了信息环境对监管监控和平台崩溃的影响。利用平台与监管办公室的距离作为监管信息不对称的代理，我们发现地理距离越大，平台受到监管并崩溃的可能性越高。具体而言，从平台到当地监管办公室的驾驶距离每增加1%，崩溃的可能性就会增加1.011%。为了确定因果关系，我们利用双重差分方法分析了两种外生冲击：政府办公室搬迁和地铁站开放。我们进一步探索了两个潜在渠道：（1）信息渠道，通过这一渠道，更大的监管距离降低了监管机构现场访问的可能性和频率；（2）资源约束渠道，通过该渠道，更高的监管距离显著增加了当地监管机构的监控成本。总的来说，本研究强调了信息获取对金融科技企业监管的重要性。

主讲人学术简介：

胡荣，目前担任香港中文大学商学院助理教授。研究方向为房地产经济学以及公司金融。研究成果发表在Management Science, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Information Systems Research, Review of Finance, and Real Estate Economics等国际著名期刊。