Three essays on economics of online community and financial technology

Abstract

Information technologies provide a solid foundation for emergence and viability of various online communities and financial applications. They bring profound influence on individuals’ behaviors and further create significant economic values. In this thesis, we mainly focus on the impact of novel business model in online communities and payment technology on individual’s behaviors. Specifically, in the first study, we examine all-or-nothing funding mechanism in reward-based crowdfunding platform. By analyzing a unique dataset that captures the threshold-reaching time, we find two types of threshold-induced effects. First, there is a dramatic increase in the number of backers and Facebook shares when the project reaches its funding threshold. Second, the number of backers and Facebook shares are substantially higher in the few days before the threshold is reached than afterward. In the second study, we examine how “pay-for-knowledge” scheme affects users’ voluntary knowledge contributions. We leverage the first monetary attempt of allowing users to hold live talks in a leading question-and-answer platform. We find that introducing the paid program creates a positive spillover effect on live hosts’ free answer contributions in the short run. In addition, the increase in contribution quantity does not come at the expense of a reduction in average quality. We provide evidence that reputation building is the most likely explanation of the positive spillover. We also find heterogeneous long-term effect of the monetary incentive to different types of hosts. In the third study, we investigate the impact of face payment systems on consumers’ purchase behavior. Specifically, we leverage the introduction of face payment on vending machines in China. We find that face payment technology exerts a positive influence on users’ purchases. In addition, the positive effect on sales persists over time. The plausible mechanisms of this relationship are the convenience and novelty ushered in by the new payment system.

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology