Early refund bonuses increase successful crowdfunding

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cason, Timothy N.; Tabarrok, Alex; Zubrickas, Robertas
• 署名单位: Purdue University System; Purdue University; George Mason University; George Mason University; University of Bath
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2021.05.006
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 78-95
• 关键词: Public goods; Donations; Assurance contract; Free riding; Conditional cooperation; Early contributions; Refund bonuses; experiment; Laboratory

摘要

The assurance contract mechanism is often used to crowdfund public goods. This mechanism has weak implementation properties that can lead to miscoordination and failure to produce socially valuable projects. To encourage early contributions, we extend the assurance contract mechanism with refund bonuses rewarded only to early contributors in the event of fundraising failure. The experimental results show that our proposed solution is very effective in inducing early cooperation and increasing fundraising success. Limiting refund bonuses to early contributors works as well as offering refund bonuses to all potential contributors, while also reducing the amount of bonuses paid. We find that refund bonuses can increase the rate of campaign success by 50% or more. Moreover, we find that even taking into account campaign failures, refund bonuses can be financially self sustainable suggesting the real world value of extending assurance contracts with refund bonuses. (C) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.