Seminar

Erik Ansink: Crowdfunding public goods, an experiment

We assess the success of crowdfunding public goods using a lab-in-the-field experiment. Our aim is to decrease coordination problems that may occur when potential contributors are faced with a multitude of crowdfunding projects. Amongst others, we explore the potential of seed money and the attraction effect. We implement our crowdfunding experiment using a web-based interface with multiple threshold public goods over the course of four days, similar in style to conventional crowdfunding. We find our treatments to increase efficiency via improved coordination and increased early contributions. These results are confirmed in a follow-up experiment with actual nature conservation projects.