Manju Puri is the J. B. Fuqua Professor at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
Professor Puri’s research works towards understanding the role of venture capitalists in startups; how shocks to banks get transmitted internationally; financial intermediation and empirical corporate finance.
We analyze the information content of the digital footprint – information that people leave online simply by accessing or registering on a website – for predicting consumer default. We show that even simple, easily accessible variables from the digital footprint match the information content of credit bureau scores. The digital footprint complements rather than substitutes for credit bureau information and it affects access to credit and reduces default rates. We discuss the implications for financial intermediaries’ business models, for access to credit for the unbanked, and for the behavior of consumers, firms, and regulators in the digital sphere.
