Angry Borrowers: Ex Post Effects of Social Shaming on Debt Repayment
研究发现，针对逾期借款人的社会羞辱催收策略适得其反，显著提高了违约率，尤其是对男性及有更好信贷选择的借款人影响更大，符合负面互惠理论。
We examine the consequences of an intrusive debt-collection tactic that targets delinquent borrowers’ social circles. Our identification strategy relies on the fact that some of the delinquent loans are not worked on because of collection agents’ excessive workload. Using two approaches to estimate the local treatment effect, we show that this social-shaming tactic backfires and substantially increases the borrowers’ default rate. Borrowers with better outside options for credit access and male borrowers respond more strongly after they are shamed socially. These findings are in general consistent with the negative reciprocity interpretation; angered borrowers retaliate by defaulting on their loans. This paper was accepted by Lin William Cong, finance. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.00681 .