主题: Social Media Payment Channels and the Cost of Entertainment Spending
题目：社交媒体支付渠道与娱乐消费成本
时间: May 14th, 2026 (Thursday) 8:30 am-9:30 am Beijing Time
地点: 第五教学楼 5306
主讲人: Yinghao Pan, PhD Student, School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China
Bio:
Yinghao Pan is a Ph.D. student at the School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests include digital platforms, AI in business, and incentive design. He previously served as a visiting student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His work has been published in Production and Operations Management (POM), with several ongoing projects under revision at leading journals such as Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM). He is the principal investigator of a NSFC Young Student Basic Research Program.
照片：
As social media platforms increasingly introduce embedded payment channels (e.g., Douyin Pay, WhatsApp Pay), the pathway linking content consumption to economic transactions is fundamentally reshaped. Unlike traditional payment channels, social media payment channels are embedded within a rich entertainment-oriented content environment. We argue that a social media payment channel can induce more spending on the platform (i.e., a convenience effect) and simultaneously trigger adjustments in users’ spending across consumption categories (i.e., a consumption adjustment effect). In this study, we use a unique dataset from a leading Asian bank and examine the impact of adopting a social media payment channel on users’ spending behavior. The dataset covers 640,644 credit card users, including detailed records of their adoption of Douyin Pay as well as their transactions. Using a look-ahead difference-in-differences (LA DID) design, we find that adopting Douyin Pay reduces users’ overall spending by approximately 9.3%, corresponding to an average reduction of around 394 RMB. We further show that this reduction is driven by actual usage rather than the mere availability of the payment channel. Within categories covered by Douyin, users reallocate transactions from other channels to the Douyin platform (i.e., a cross-channel shift for convenience), accompanied by increased entertainment consumption on Douyin, while spending declines in more flexible consumption categories not covered by Douyin (i.e., a cross-category reduction for consumption adjustment). Moreover, reductions in flexible-category spending are more pronounced when increases in entertainment consumption are stronger. Our findings provide new insights into how social media payment channels reshape user spending behavior and offer important managerial implications for both content platforms and financial institutions involved in digital payment ecosystems.