The Economics of Crowdfunding

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chang, Jen-Wen
• 署名单位: California State University System; California State University Fullerton
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20170183
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 257-280
• 关键词: public-goods; INFORMATION; aggregation; provision; BEHAVIOR; demand

摘要

An entrepreneur finances her project via crowdfunding. She chooses a funding mechanism (fixed or flexible), a price, and a funding goal. Under fixed funding, money is refunded if the goal is not met; under flexible funding, there is no refund. Backers observe signals about project value and decide whether to contribute or postpone purchase to the retail stage. Using the linkage principle, we show that the optimal campaign uses fixed funding. Furthermore, we show that an entrepreneur who is not financially constrained can approximately extract full surplus using fixed funding. Therefore, crowdfunding is attractive to both small and large entrepreneurs.