'Instituto de Quimica - Univ. Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul'
Abstract
Online investment decision behavior in crowdfunding projects is characterized by a lack of
information and a comparativ
ely high risk. Although crowdfunding has achieved notable attention
from the general public in the last years, the academic research on this fast-growing market remains
rather limited until today. This paper investigates how users behave when making risky
online
investment decisions in crowdfunding. How are they influenced by information on the choices of
earlier funders on a web-based platform? These questions are evaluated using an online experiment
based on kickstarter.com. We show that crowdfunding supporters follow the signal of previous users,
even when this is associated with a higher monetary commitment. Based on these findings,
implications for crowdfunding project creators and platform operators are discussed
