A paper titled "Financial Inclusion via FinTech: From Digital Payments to Platform Investments," co-authored by Professor Jun Pan, Professor of Finance and SAIF Chair Professor, Professor Yurong Hong, Associate Professor of Finance, and their collaborator Xiaomeng Lu, has been accepted for publication in Management Science, a premier international academic journal. The paper has already garnered 146 Google Scholar citations.
Abstract
We study household finance in the age of FinTech, where digital payments are integrated with various financial services through all-in-one super-apps. We hypothesize that increased FinTech adoption via digital payments can lower the non-monetary costs (e.g., psychological barriers) associated with financial market participation. We find that higher FinTech adoption leads to greater participation and increased risk-taking in mutual fund investments. Using distance from Ant as an instrument for FinTech penetration, as well as the exogenous penetration of QRPay in Shenzhen, we provide causal evidence from digital payment to risky fund investment. Moreover, the effect of FinTech is stronger among individuals who are otherwise more constrained, those with higher risk tolerance, or those living in under-banked counties.
About Professor Pan
Dr. Jun Pan is a Professor of Finance and SAIF Chair Professor at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Before joining SAIF in 2019, Professor Pan held prestigious positions at renowned institutions, including the School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance and Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She was also a fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States.
Professor Pan's research encompasses asset pricing, financial derivatives markets, credit risk models, financial crises, market liquidity, market microstructure, risk management, fixed-income markets, and China's financial market. She has published more than 20 high-level academic papers in prestigious international academic journals, including Econometrica, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Financial Economics. Professor Pan has been selected for Elsevier's "China's Most Cited Scholars" list for four consecutive years from 2021 to 2024.
Professor Pan serves as an editor at the Review of Finance and an associate editor at the Journal of Finance. In recognition of her outstanding research contributions, she received the SAIF Faculty Academic Research Award in 2022.
Professor Pan has received numerous awards and honors throughout her career, including the Luise Meyer-Schutzmeister Award for American Women in Science (1995), the Jaedicke Fellowship at Stanford Graduate School of Business (1996-1997), the Lieberman Fellowship at Stanford University (1998-1999), the Western Illinois University Alumni Achievement Award (2001), the First Prize in The Chicago Quantitative Alliance Annual Academic Competition (2003), and The Stephen A. Ross Prize in Financial Economics (2015).
About Professor Hong
Dr. Yurong Hong is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Professor Hong's research focuses on empirical asset pricing, insider trading, and asset management. She has published papers in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (JFQA) and Management Science. Her research program received support from the National Natural Science Foundation Youth Science Fund in 2021.
At SAIF, Professor Hong teaches the course "Fixed Income Securities" for MBA and MF students.
