Smart Contracts, Prepayment and Seller Selection: Evidence from China's Education-Training Industry
Speaker：Xiao Xiaolin, Associate Professor, Peking University
Host：Huang Xuesong, Assistant Professor, Lingnan College
Time and Date：14:30, November 6, 2026 (Friday)
Venue：Wang Dao Han Conference Room (101), Lingnan Hall
Language：Chinese
Abstract：
We study how smart contracts embedded in digital payments reshape markets that run on prepayment. Sellers differ privately in reliability; buyers prepay through one of three contracts: money up front (M), smart-contract escrow (S), or platform escrow (I). We map the theory to China's education-training industry and Shenzhen's Zhifu Wuyou pilot—built on e-CNY, the world's largest central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot—which by July 2026 had recorded roughly 0.9 million prepaid-tuition contracts and held a cumulative RMB 4.5 billion of tuition under smart-contract escrow. Three main results follow. First, sellers make different contract choices: reliable types adopt smart contracts, unreliable types take money up front, and delivery-contingent competition can break down the pooling that sustains prepaid M contracts. Second, learning by doing lowers adoption costs, generating a diffusion path along which smart contracts spread and aggregate default falls, while the unescrowed segment shrinks and worsens in composition over time. Third, the existence of smart-contract escrow can cap the platform's commission fees at the value of its matching service.
Profile:
Dr. Sylvia Xiaolin Xiao is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, a doctoral supervisor, and a "Rising Sun–Guanghua Young Scholar." Her main research fields are monetary economics and macroeconomics. Her current research focuses on digital currencies, government venture capital, and related topics in industrial organization and macroeconomics. She has served as principal investigator on two projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, as well as projects supported by Guanghua Thought Leadership and several other research grants.
Before joining Peking University, Dr. Xiao held positions at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the United States and Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. Her research has appeared in leading international and Chinese academic journals, including the Journal of Monetary Economics, International Economic Review, Review of Economic Dynamics, European Economic Review, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Management World, China Economic Quarterly, and the Journal of Economics and Management.
Her honors include the Outstanding Paper Award at the Annual Conference on International Finance (2025), Peking University's Outstanding Class Advisor Award (2024), and Second Prize, the Best Teaching Demonstration Award, and the Outstanding Lesson Plan Award at Peking University's 21st Young Faculty Teaching Competition (2021). She was also awarded the Dan Searle Fellowship in Economics, an international fellowship selected and funded by DonorsTrust in the United States.
