Digital Transmission of Financial Knowledge: Evidence from Stock Market Investment

This paper examines the impact of a digital platform’s transmission of financial knowledge on users’ stock market participation and investment performance. Leveraging a Chinese platform’s randomly distributed prompts as an instrument, we demonstrate that access to financial information increases stock investment, enhances portfolio diversification, and improves risk-adjusted returns, even among older, less educated, and less affluent users. Although initial responses to the prompts are modest, sustained exposure overcomes inertia and drives considerable engagement. Digitalization thus holds promises for democratizing finance by providing scalable, low-cost financial education that helps individuals make more informed investment decisions.