When Top-Down Meets Bottom-Up: Legislative Signals and Online Crowdfunding
研究了《每个学生成功法案》的批准如何影响教育众筹平台的捐赠行为，发现捐赠者更倾向本地项目，加剧了教育资源分配不均。
Over the last two decades, online crowdfunding platforms have facilitated fundraising efforts to alleviate resource shortages across various sectors. As these platforms become increasingly important channels for bottom-up resource mobilization, it is essential to understand their vulnerability to shifts in public perception caused by top-down, off-platform events. We examine the effect of legislative signals on online giving behavior in the context of public education. We analyze how the ratification of the prominent Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) impacted giving behavior on a leading education crowdfunding platform and find two contrasting donor tendencies. Although donors contributed more to local initiatives following the ratification, they contributed less to nonlocal initiatives, leading to a substantial net decline in the funds raised. These effects manifest through two mechanisms: information push and information pull. This hyper-localization exacerbates the resource-divide problem in education; schools with students of lower socioeconomic status experienced a sharper decline in the proportion of projects funded. This finding suggests the usefulness of timed and targeted nudges by platform managers, especially around the announcement of major external events. If matching processes are designed carefully, online platforms can mitigate, at least to some extent, the consequences of education inequity.