Gender Differences In Reaction To Enforcement Mechanisms: A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment

We follow 58,345 borrowers from a peer-to-peer lending platform to study how women and men react to enforcement mechanisms differently. The experiment randomizes borrowers into treatments that send different text messages encouraging borrowers to repay loans on time. Compared to a reminder, the messages inducing social pressure and financial incentives reduce the overall overdue rate. However, women are more responsive to social pressure, while men are more sensitive to financial incentives. Other pre-existing characteristics between men and women cannot fully explain the gender gap. These results imply the potential importance of a gender-dependent mechanism to enhance compliance.