IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03971723.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Testing-the-Waters Policy With Hypothetical Investment: Evidence From Equity Crowdfunding

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas Cumming

    (Florida Atlantic University [Boca Raton])

  • Fabrice Hervé

    (CREGO - Centre de Recherche en Gestion des Organisations - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UB - Université de Bourgogne - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE] - UFC - Université de Franche-Comté - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE])

  • Elodie Manthé

    (IREGE - Institut de Recherche en Gestion et en Economie - USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry] - Université Savoie Mont Blanc)

  • Armin Schwienbacher

    (SKEMA Business School - SKEMA Business School)

Abstract

Digitization has enabled "testing-the-waters" in entrepreneurial finance whereby investors can make nonbinding commitments in equity crowdfunding prior to an actual campaign to ascertain interest in the project. We consider whether these nonbinding equity investment commitments are informative about actual investments during the campaign and, thus, ultimate startup funding success. The data indicate that only 18% of nonbinding commitments are, in fact, invested. The evidence is consistent with hypothetical bias. Hypothetical bias is significantly less pronounced among women and among investors living in higher income areas or in areas with higher levels of education. While investment intentions are only partially reliable at the individual level, the aggregate amount of collected investment intentions is a strong predictor of campaign success. We investigate alternative reasons for withdrawals, such as lying and informational motives, both of which we find implausible alternatives to hypothetical bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas Cumming & Fabrice Hervé & Elodie Manthé & Armin Schwienbacher, 2022. "Testing-the-Waters Policy With Hypothetical Investment: Evidence From Equity Crowdfunding," Post-Print hal-03971723, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03971723
    DOI: 10.1177/1042258720932522
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Massimo G. Colombo & Benedetta Montanaro & Silvio Vismara, 2023. "What drives the valuation of entrepreneurial ventures? A map to navigate the literature and research directions," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 59-84, June.
    2. Shane Enete & Tim Sturr, 2023. "How Corporate Sociopolitical Activism (CSA) impacts portfolio allocations: an experiment," International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Gallucci, Carmen & Giakoumelou, Anastasia & Santulli, Rosalia & Tipaldi, Riccardo, 2023. "How financial literacy moderates the relationship between qualitative business information and the success of an equity crowdfunding campaign: Evidence from Mediterranean and Gulf Cooperation Council ," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    4. Guillochon, Justine, 2022. "The role of media, policy and regional heterogeneity in renewable energy project crowdfunding," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    5. Fabrice Hervé & Sylvain Marsat, 2024. "Like daughter, like father: Female socialization and green equity investment," Post-Print hal-04717594, HAL.

    More about this item

    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:hal:journl:hal-03971723. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.