Mind the App: Mobile Access to Financial Information and Consumer Behavior

52 Pages Posted: 9 Apr 2020 Last revised: 27 Jan 2021

See all articles by Yaron Levi

Yaron Levi

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business

Shlomo Benartzi

UCLA Anderson

Date Written: March 17, 2020

Abstract

We use transaction data from an account aggregation company to study the impact of access to personal financial information from mobile devices on consumer behavior. We study consumers who installed the mobile app after using the app on a PC for several months. We utilize the gradual release of the apps on different devices (iPhone, iPad, and Android) to establish a causal relationship conditional on the adoption of a mobile app. Consistent with rational inattention models, consumers increase their login frequency, especially during retail peak hours. Consistent with costly self-control and reference-dependent utility models, we find that consumers decrease their discretionary spending, and these effects are stronger among lower-income and high-spending-to-income consumers.

Keywords: fintech, behavioral economics, household finance, consumption, spending, rational inattention, self-control, reference-dependent utility.

JEL Classification: D1, G4, G5

Suggested Citation

Levi, Yaron and Benartzi, Shlomo, Mind the App: Mobile Access to Financial Information and Consumer Behavior (March 17, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3557689 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3557689

Yaron Levi (Contact Author)

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business ( email )

Marshall School of Business
Los Angeles, CA 90089
United States

Shlomo Benartzi

UCLA Anderson ( email )

365 24th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90402
United States

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