IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2205.08569.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Investigating the concentration of High Yield Investment Programs in the United Kingdom

Author

Listed:
  • Sharad Agarwal
  • Marie Vasek

Abstract

Ponzi schemes that offer absurdly high rates of return by relying on more and more people paying into the scheme have been documented since at least the mid-1800s. Ponzi schemes have shifted online in the Internet age, and some are re-branded as HYIPs or High Yield Investment Programs. This paper focuses on understanding HYIPs' continuous presence and presents various possible reasons behind their existence in today's world. A look into the countries where these schemes purport to exist, we find that 62.89% of all collected HYIPs claim to be in the United Kingdom (UK), and a further 55.56% are officially registered in the UK as a 'limited company' with a registration number provided by the UK Companies House, a UK agency that registers companies. We investigate other factors influencing these schemes, including the HYIPs' social media platforms and payment processors. The lifetime of the HYIPs helps to understand the success/failure of the investment schemes and helps indicate the schemes that could attract more investors. Using Cox proportional regression analysis, we find that having a valid UK address significantly affects the lifetime of an HYIP.

Suggested Citation

  • Sharad Agarwal & Marie Vasek, 2022. "Investigating the concentration of High Yield Investment Programs in the United Kingdom," Papers 2205.08569, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2205.08569
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2205.08569
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kimberly Blanton, 2012. "The Rise of Financial Fraud," Issues in Brief ib2012-5, Center for Retirement Research, revised Feb 2012.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Md. Khaled Bin Amir & Md. Zobayer Bin Amir & Mohammad Ariful Islam, 2022. "Phenomenon of bank scams in Bangladesh: Analysis on behavioral issues," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 11(7), pages 189-200, October.
    2. Davit Khachatryan & Brigitte Muehlmann, 2017. "Determinants of successful patent applications to combat financial fraud," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1353-1383, June.
    3. Sigurdur Gudjonsson & Inga Minelgaite & Kari Kristinsson & Sigrún Pálsdóttir, 2022. "Financial Literacy and Gender Differences: Women Choose People While Men Choose Things?," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-9, November.
    4. Reurink, Arjan, 2016. "Financial fraud: A literature review," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/5, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    5. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2014. "The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 5-44, March.
    6. Keane, M.P. & Thorp, S., 2016. "Complex Decision Making," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 661-709, Elsevier.
    7. Michael P. Keane & Susan Thorp, 2016. "Complex Decision Making: The Roles of Cognitive Limitations, Cognitive Decline and Ageing," Economics Papers 2016-W10, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2205.08569. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.