Clan culture and participation in FinTech-based risk sharing

Abstract

Online mutual aid (MA), an innovative FinTech-based risk sharing model that emerged in China, aims to share medical costs for critical illnesses through decentralized digital platforms. Based on approximately 200 thousand claim cases from the largest MA platform (Xianghubao) in China, this study examines the impact of clan culture on MA participation. We use the number of genealogy books per thousand people of each surname to measure the strength of clan culture. The baseline result shows that individuals with stronger clan intensity are more likely to voluntarily participate in Xianghubao, which is robust to an alternative measure of clan culture, exclusion of cases without genealogy books, and exclusion of four major surnames. The positive impact of clan culture exists in both males and females, and in people with high and low educational levels. Last, we rule out four potential explanations that our clan culture measure may proxy for factors other than clan intensity within kinship networks. Our study provides great insights on the interaction between culture and FinTech development, as well as the interaction between clan-based risk sharing and FinTech-based risk sharing.