关键词: P2P网络借贷, 投资经验, 甄别违约风险的能力, 借款标的特征, 学习

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate whether investors can improve their ability to identify the default risk by learning with experience, and study how this improvement works. Taking the investors’ choice of the listing characteristics as the proxy variable of the learning result, we construct a theoretic frame in which investment experience affects investors’ ability to identify the default risk through learning the listing characteristics. Based on "Renrendai" 2010-2016 data, we apply the mediation analysis method to analyze the relationship between investment experience and the ability to identify the default risk before and after separating the learning effect. The evidence shows that: 1) investment experience has a positive gross impact on the ability to identify the default risk with diminishing marginal effect and this gross impact is positive at the average investment experience; 2) investment experience has an indirect impact on the ability to identify the default risk by affecting the learning result; 3) after separating this indirect effect, the direct influence of investment experience on the ability to identify the default risk is negative and marginally increasing and this direct impact is negative at the average investment experience. The direct effect is concealed by the indirect effect, resulting in different change trends of the direct effect and the gross effect. Learning from investment experience can change the nonlinear form in which investment experience affects the ability to identify the default risk. This makes it possible for investors to improve their ability to identify the default risk with learning from their previous investment experience. This research provides guidance for investors to improve their abilities, and provides reference for P2P online lending platforms to create better investment environments, as well as policy suggestions for administrators on P2P platform information disclosure regulation, investor education and protection.

Key words: Online P2P Lending, Investment Experience, Ability to Identify Default Risk, Listing Characteristics, Learning