Mobile Payment Adoption in China: A Comment on Vatsa et al.

Abstract

Vatsa et al. examine the determinants of mobile payment adoption in China. They do so by applying a probit model to data from a nationally representative survey. In this comment, we identify several conceptual and econometric limitations that affect the robustness of Vatsa et al.'s findings. By improving the methodological approach—most notably by accounting for potential selection bias—we find substantially different results: Health status and party membership are no longer statistically significant, the effects of economic status and social participation prove to be nonlinear, and the impact of most other factors differs in magnitude. When we, in a final step, also try to improve upon Vatsa et al.'s specification, we find, for a sample consisting of mobile phone owners, that the new constructs digital skills and internet experience have a significant positive impact on mobile payment use. Conversely, privacy concerns do not.