Platform Credit, Advertising, and Customer Capital

15:40-17:00, Friday, April 11, 2025

I-206, Boxue Building

Dr. Qi SUN is a tenured associate professor at the School of Finance, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and previously served as a senior economist at the Luohan Academy of Alibaba. His primary research focuses on corporate finance, macroeconomics, and the digital economy. His work spans various areas, including corporate financing, intangible capital investment, financial risk management, the development of fintech, and the impact of the digital economy on financial markets. He has published multiple papers in international economics and finance journals such as the Journal of Financial Economics and the Economic Journal.

Advertising plays a particularly crucial role in online marketplaces, where thousands of merchants offer similar products and compete for visibility and consumer attention. This study theoretically and empirically demonstrates that merchants on e-commerce platforms often engage in underadvertising due to financial constraints. By leveraging quasi-random variation in merchants' access to BigTech credit from a major platform lender, we establish that alleviating financial constraints leads to substantial increases in advertising expenditures, enhanced shop visibility among customers, and ultimately, accelerated sales growth. Notably, high-quality merchants with top customer ratings are especially likely to utilize BigTech credit to invest in advertising.

For more information of the seminar, scan the following QR code(s) to join Tencent QQ group (904 544 292) or WeChat group named "IAER Seminar (5)", please.

QQ Group

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(QR code is valid until April 4, 2025)