Market mechanisms and funding dynamics in equity crowdfunding
研究了股权众筹中分配机制（先到先得与第二价格拍卖）如何影响融资动态，发现前者呈L形、后者呈U形，且投资者受企业家更新和其他投资者行为影响。
Equity crowdfunding is a new form of entrepreneurial finance, in which investors do not receive perks or engage in pre-purchase of the product, but rather participate in the future cash flows of a firm. In this paper, we analyze what determines individual investment decisions in this new financial market. One important factor that may influence the behavior of investors is the way the portal allocates securities. We use unique data from four German equity crowdfunding portals to examine how the allocation mechanism affects funding dynamics. In contrast with the crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter, on which the typical pattern of project support is U shaped, we find that equity crowdfunding dynamics are L shaped under a first-come, first-served mechanism and U shaped under a second-price auction. The evidence also shows that investors base their decisions on information provided by the entrepreneur in the form of updates as well as by the investment behavior and comments of other crowd investors.