{"id":1472,"slug":"nber-wp-29840-invisible-primes-fintech-altdata-2022","title":"NBER WP 29840 (Di Maggio, Ratnadiwakara, Carmichael, 2022) — \"Invisible Primes: Fintech Lending with Alternative Data\"","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["information-asymmetry","alternative-data-scoring"],"reference_body":"**Claim.** Fintech lenders using alternative data identify \"invisible primes\" — borrowers whose true creditworthiness is unobservable to traditional bureau-only scoring — and lend to them profitably. Explicit information-asymmetry-reduction framing.\n\n**Source.** Marco Di Maggio, Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara, Don Carmichael, \"Invisible Primes: Fintech Lending with Alternative Data,\" NBER Working Paper 29840 (2022). Primary academic.\n\n**Confidence.** Verified. NBER working paper; primary academic source on the alt-data credit thesis.\n\n**Caveats.** US fintech context (LendingClub-era lenders); generalising the *exact* lift to Canadian SMBs is inferential. The mechanism is general, the magnitudes are setting-specific.\n\n**Implication / use.** Cleanest peer-reviewed grounding for risk-domain decision edge. Use to connect Akerlof ([[akerlof-1970-market-for-lemons-asymmetric-information]]) to a measured commercial outcome in a familiar setting.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"research-brief-information-asymmetry-decision-edge-june-2026","title":"Research notes (capture-layer): the affirmative, inward decision-edge case for data intelligence — information asymmetry applied to pricing, demand, risk, retention, targeting (June 2026)","kind":"research-notes","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"akerlof-1970-market-for-lemons-asymmetric-information","title":"Akerlof 1970 — \"The Market for Lemons\"; asymmetric information can collapse markets (Nobel 2001)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"rule-prefer-peer-reviewed-vetted-over-vendor-recycled-magnitudes","title":"Rule: prefer peer-reviewed / award-vetted magnitudes (Edelman, NBER, INFORMS) over vendor-recycled figures","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"ifc-world-bank-cracking-credit-code-2026","title":"IFC / World Bank — \"Cracking the Credit Code: Alternative Data and AI for Financial Inclusion\" (2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"jpal-agarwal-2019-india-mobile-social-default-prediction","title":"J-PAL Agarwal et al. 2019 India — mobile / social-footprint ML predicts loan defaults more effectively than credit-only models","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"pmc-altdata-significant-decline-without-it","title":"PMC peer-reviewed — excluding alternative data led to \"a significant decline in model performance\" (PMC11108212)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-21T01:14:48.756Z","updated_at":"2026-06-21T01:14:48.756Z"}