Magnitude effects in lending and borrowing: empirical evidence from a P2P platform

For varying borrowing and lending amounts, the corresponding subjective discount rates will also vary. A situation where high amounts correspond to lower discount rates is called a conventional magnitude effect, while the opposite is called a reverse magnitude effect. We present an overview of the theoretical arguments for both kinds of magnitude effects. Against this background, we then offer the first comprehensive empirical analysis of this issue based on real-life transaction data. To do so, we rely on more than 9,000 credit applications from the formerly largest German peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform, Smava, between February 2007 and April 2013. We confirm that there is a conventional magnitude effect for lending money to others but a reverse magnitude effect for borrowing decisions. We suggest, as an explanation for our findings, the prevalence of cost-based determinants of magnitude effects in this special setting.