Signalling effects of doing good in global ICO markets
研究了全球44个国家2014-2018年的ICO项目，发现来自低个人主义、高仁爱文化国家的ICO更可能具有社会责任目标，这些项目信息披露更充分、社交平台互动更活跃，且募资效果与普通ICO相当。
The Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) markets have experienced dramatic development and turmoil worldwide. This paper studies signalling effects of CSR among global ICOs by asking if CSR narratives reflect values that highlight the interests of broad stakeholders, reduce information asymmetry, and improve fundraising outcomes. We construct a sample of ICOs across 44 countries from 2014 to 2018 and define socially responsible ICOs as those that serving education, environment, health, and poverty as described in their whitepapers. We find that ICOs from countries with a lower individualism and high benevolence culture are more likely have socially responsible goals. These projects tend to have better disclosure in whitepapers and are more active in engaging with stakeholders on social networking platforms. They are as competitive as ordinary ICOs in fundraising outcomes. Our analyses could advice entrepreneurial ventures on how to build legitimacy and inform investors of the strategy to verify signals in the risky private equity markets.