The Discrimination against Non-financial Characteristics of Borrowers in Chinese P2P Lending

Abstract

The market of Chinese P2P Lending has rapidly grown in the last ten years. We use transaction records of RRD, which is one of the leading platforms in Chinese P2P Lending, to analyze the financial discrimination in this market. Using the non-financial characteristics of borrowers, including five variables――gender, age, educational background, marital status, and working location, we estimate the funding rate, default rate, and return rate of the loan securities. Different from standard economics, the estimation results of these variables are significant, which means that non-financial characteristics are as important as financial ones for lenders. Moreover, we find that the discrimination regarding gender, marital status, and working location is rational statistical discrimination, while discrimination on age is irrational taste-based discrimination.