Digital Lending and Financial Well-Being: Through the Lens of Mobile Phone Data Free

We thank the digital lender (Tala) for generously sharing data in support of our study and for many helpful discussions. We appreciate helpful suggestions and comments from the editor, two anonymous reviewers, Eric Floyd, Jonas Heese, Paul Healy, Aneel Iqbal, Amir Kermani, Botir Kobilov, Shirley Lu, Xiumin Martin, Mushfiq Mobarak, Thomas Rauter, Siko Sikochi, Andrew Sutherland, Florin Vasvari, G-Song Yoo, Christina Zhu, Luo Zuo, Harvard University Center for African Studies, seminar participants at Arizona State University, Bocconi University, BI Norwegian Business School, Cornell University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Harvard University, HEC Paris, The University of Hong Kong, Korea University-Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Joint Workshop, McGill University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Seoul National University, Stockholm School of Economics, Tel Aviv University, University of California, Irvine, The University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Miami, University of Michigan, The University of New Mexico, University of San Diego, The University of Texas at Dallas, University of Washington, Yale University, and participants at the 2024 Financial Accounting and Reporting Section Midyear Meeting, 2023 Harvard Business School Information, Markets, and Organizations Conference, 2023 Haskayne and Fox Accounting Conference, 2024 Hawaii Accounting Research Conference, 2023 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Accounting Research Conference, 2022 Korean Accounting Association Conference, 2023 The Pennsylvania State University Accounting Research Conference, 2022 University of Toronto Rotman Accounting Research Conference, and 2024 Wharton Spring Accounting Conference. We thank Xiaoyan Jiang and Nolan Costin for their excellent research assistance. We are grateful for the financial support from our respective institutions. Jung Koo Kang also acknowledges the Digital Value Lab in the Digital Data Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard University for research support.

AJ Yuan Chen, The University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business, Accounting and Information Systems Division, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Omri Even-Tov, University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, Department of Accounting, Berkeley, CA, USA; Jung Koo Kang, Harvard University, Harvard Business School, Accounting and Management, Boston, MA, USA; Regina Wittenberg-Moerman, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Accounting Information and Management, Evanston, IL, USA.

Editor’s note: Accepted by Luo Zuo, under the Senior Editorship of Kathryn Kadous.