Providing assets in the sharing economy: Low childhood socioeconomic status as a barrier

Abstract

In the past few decades, the modern marketplace has offered consumers a proliferation of models for consumption based on sharing and access. Extant literature provides systematic examinations of motives for consuming products through the sharing economy on the demand side, but factors that affect consumers' asset-providing decisions on the supply side remain understudied. The current paper explores whether the socioeconomic environment one grew up in might produce a long-lasting impact on willingness to sharing one’s unused assets. Results from the analysis of a national-level field dataset and six preregistered studies (combined N = 45,289) reveal that lower childhood socioeconomic status can hinder consumers’ asset-providing behavior, an effect that holds beyond the influence of other factors such as current SES and asset availability. We identify greater territorial feelings towards one’s assets as a central mechanism driving the decreased asset-providing behavior of consumers with a lower childhood socioeconomic background, and we show that asset providers’ closeness to potential borrowers attenuates the negative impact of lower childhood SES.