This paper investigates expert bidding imitation in peer-to-peer lending platforms. We employ data from Renrendai.com, which contains information of about 170,000 investors who placed almost four million bids on 111,234 loan listings from 2010 to 2018. The experts are defined as investors who either have more central roles or who spend more time or money on the network. We find that an average investor mimics the bids of expert lenders. Inactive lenders learn top investors’ lending behaviour through observational learning and then, follow their actions, although they do not know the experts’ identity. Finally, we show that experts rarely imitate other experts, yet they exhibit herding behaviour.

中文翻译：

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P2P市场中的专家模仿

本文研究了 P2P 借贷平台中的专家竞价模仿。我们采用了人人贷网的数据，其中包含大约 170,000 名投资者的信息，这些投资者在 2010 年至 2018 年期间对 111,234 笔贷款清单出价近 400 万。专家被定义为具有更多核心角色或花费更多时间或金钱的投资者网络。我们发现普通投资者会模仿专业贷款人的出价。不活跃的贷款人通过观察学习了解顶级投资者的贷款行为，然后跟随他们的行动，尽管他们不知道专家的身份。最后，我们表明专家很少模仿其他专家，但他们表现出羊群行为。