IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v238y2025ics0167268125003208.html

Financing micro-entrepreneurship in online crowdfunding markets: What drives local bias?

Author

Listed:
  • Ni, Jian
  • Xin, Yi
  • Yang, Fangzhu

Abstract

This paper investigates local bias in online crowdfunding and examines the channels through which it manifests. Using rich data from a major Chinese reward-based crowdfunding platform, we document strong local bias among funders, particularly for projects whose evaluation relies on local knowledge. We develop and estimate a structural model to quantify the roles of preference and information channels in driving this bias, finding that informational frictions account for roughly two-thirds of the effect. A counterfactual policy that removes project location information increases contributions from different-province funders and benefits projects originating in underdeveloped regions. Our findings highlight the role of platform design in shaping investor behavior and expanding funding access for micro-entrepreneurs.

Suggested Citation

  • Ni, Jian & Xin, Yi & Yang, Fangzhu, 2025. "Financing micro-entrepreneurship in online crowdfunding markets: What drives local bias?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:238:y:2025:i:c:s0167268125003208
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107201
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268125003208
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107201?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cooper, Ian & Sercu, Piet & Vanpée, Rosanne, 2013. "The Equity Home Bias Puzzle: A Survey," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 7(4), pages 289-416, December.
    2. Giancarlo Giudici & Massimiliano Guerini & Cristina Rossi-Lamastra, 2018. "Reward-based crowdfunding of entrepreneurial projects: the effect of local altruism and localized social capital on proponents’ success," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 307-324, February.
    3. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2001. "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 811-841, August.
    4. Cumming, Douglas J. & Johan, Sofia A. & Zhang, Yelin, 2019. "The role of due diligence in crowdfunding platforms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    5. Garry Bruton & Susanna Khavul & Donald Siegel & Mike Wright, 2015. "New Financial Alternatives in Seeding Entrepreneurship: Microfinance, Crowdfunding, and Peer–to–Peer Innovations," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(1), pages 9-26, January.
    6. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2001. "How Distance, Language, and Culture Influence Stockholdings and Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 1053-1073, June.
    7. Brennan, Michael J & Cao, H Henry, 1997. "International Portfolio Investment Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 1851-1880, December.
    8. Heiko Jacobs & Martin Weber, 2012. "The Trading Volume Impact of Local Bias: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 16(4), pages 867-901.
    9. Ajay Agrawal & Christian Catalini & Avi Goldfarb, 2014. "Some Simple Economics of Crowdfunding," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 63-97.
    10. Yan Xu & Jian Ni, 2022. "Entrepreneurial Learning and Disincentives in Crowdfunding Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6819-6864, September.
    11. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Laura Veldkamp, 2009. "Information Immobility and the Home Bias Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1187-1215, June.
    12. Ahearne, Alan G. & Griever, William L. & Warnock, Francis E., 2004. "Information costs and home bias: an analysis of US holdings of foreign equities," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 313-336, March.
    13. Kang, Jun-Koo & Stulz, Rene M., 1997. "Why is there a home bias? An analysis of foreign portfolio equity ownership in Japan," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 3-28, October.
    14. Huberman, Gur, 2001. "Familiarity Breeds Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 659-680.
    15. Christina Guenther & Sofia Johan & Denis Schweizer, 2018. "Is the crowd sensitive to distance?—how investment decisions differ by investor type," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 289-305, February.
    16. Kalok Chan & Vicentiu Covrig & Lilian Ng, 2005. "What Determines the Domestic Bias and Foreign Bias? Evidence from Mutual Fund Equity Allocations Worldwide," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1495-1534, June.
    17. Ajay Agrawal & Christian Catalini & Avi Goldfarb, 2015. "Crowdfunding: Geography, Social Networks, and the Timing of Investment Decisions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 253-274, June.
    18. Mark S. Seasholes & Ning Zhu, 2010. "Individual Investors and Local Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1987-2010, October.
    19. Weining Bao & Jian Ni & Shubhranshu Singh, 2018. "Informal Lending in Emerging Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(1), pages 123-137, January.
    20. Ali Hortaçsu & F. Asís Martínez-Jerez & Jason Douglas, 2009. "The Geography of Trade in Online Transactions: Evidence from eBay and MercadoLibre," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 53-74, February.
    21. French, Kenneth R & Poterba, James M, 1991. "Investor Diversification and International Equity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 222-226, May.
    22. Mingfeng Lin & Siva Viswanathan, 2016. "Home Bias in Online Investments: An Empirical Study of an Online Crowdfunding Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(5), pages 1393-1414, May.
    23. Zoran Ivković & Scott Weisbenner, 2005. "Local Does as Local Is: Information Content of the Geography of Individual Investors' Common Stock Investments," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 267-306, February.
    24. Lata Gangadharan & Philip J Grossman & Lingbo Huang & C Matthew Leister & Erte Xiao, 2023. "Persuadable or Dissuadable Altruists? The Impact of Information of Recipient Characteristics on Giving," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(656), pages 2925-2948.
    25. Douglas J. Cumming & Gaël Leboeuf & Armin Schwienbacher, 2020. "Crowdfunding models: Keep‐It‐All vs. All‐Or‐Nothing," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 331-360, June.
    26. Joyee Deb & Aniko Öry & Kevin R. Williams, 2024. "Aiming for the Goal: Contribution Dynamics of Crowdfunding," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(12), pages 3847-3876, December.
    27. Weining Bao & Jian Ni, 2017. "Could Good Intentions Backfire? An Empirical Analysis of the Bank Deposit Insurance," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(2), pages 301-319, March.
    28. Roland Strausz, 2017. "A Theory of Crowdfunding: A Mechanism Design Approach with Demand Uncertainty and Moral Hazard," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1430-1476, June.
    29. McGinnis, Lee Phillip & Gentry, James W., 2009. "Underdog consumption: An exploration into meanings and motives," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 191-199, February.
    30. M. Fong, Christina & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2011. "Truth in giving: Experimental evidence on the welfare effects of informed giving to the poor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 436-444, June.
    31. repec:bla:scandj:v:95:y:1993:i:1:p:97-109 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Juanjuan Zhang & Peng Liu, 2012. "Rational Herding in Microloan Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 892-912, May.
    33. Lars Hornuf & Matthias Schmitt & Eliza Stenzhorn, 2022. "The local bias in equity crowdfunding: Behavioral anomaly or rational preference?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 693-733, August.
    34. M. Fong, Christina & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2011. "Truth in giving: Experimental evidence on the welfare effects of informed giving to the poor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 436-444.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dandan Wang & Jörg Prokop, 2025. "Gender homophily and local bias in equity crowdfunding," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 805-836, March.
    2. Marco Bade & Martin Walther, 2021. "Local preferences and the allocation of attention in equity-based crowdfunding," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(8), pages 2501-2533, November.
    3. Christina Guenther & Sofia Johan & Denis Schweizer, 2018. "Is the crowd sensitive to distance?—how investment decisions differ by investor type," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 289-305, February.
    4. Eduard Gaar & David Scherer & Dirk Schiereck, 2022. "The home bias and the local bias: A survey," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 21-57, February.
    5. Wen-Lin Wu & Yin-Feng Gau, 2017. "Home bias in portfolio choices: social learning among partially informed agents," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 527-556, February.
    6. Giannetti, Mariassunta & Laeven, Luc, 2012. "The flight home effect: Evidence from the syndicated loan market during financial crises," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 23-43.
    7. Lee, Junyong & Lee, Kyounghun & Oh, Frederick Dongchuhl, 2023. "International portfolio diversification and the home bias puzzle," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    8. Dlugosch, Dennis & Horn, Kristian & Wang, Mei, 2023. "New experimental evidence on the relationship between home bias, ambiguity aversion and familiarity heuristics," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 125.
    9. Giannetti, Mariassunta & Laeven, Luc, 2012. "Local Bias and Stock Market Conditions," CEPR Discussion Papers 8969, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Chan, Kalok & Covrig, Vicentiu, 2012. "What determines mutual fund trading in foreign stocks?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 793-817.
    11. Nicolas Coeurdacier & Hélène Rey, 2013. "Home Bias in Open Economy Financial Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 63-115, March.
    12. Florentsen, Bjarne & Nielsson, Ulf & Raahauge, Peter & Rangvid, Jesper, 2020. "Turning local: Home-bias dynamics of relocating foreigners," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 436-452.
    13. R. Balasubramanian & Brajesh Kumar, 2023. "Equity Home Bias in Emerging and Advanced Economies: Trend Before and During COVID-19," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 29(4), pages 261-275, November.
    14. Anil Mishra, 2011. "Australia’s equity home bias and real exchange rate volatility," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 223-244, August.
    15. Hamberg, Mattias & Mavruk, Taylan & Sjögren, Stefan, 2013. "Investment allocation decisions, home bias and the mandatory IFRS adoption," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 107-130.
    16. Chen, Qingchong & Xiong, Xiong & Gao, Ya & Zhang, Yumeng, 2025. "Birthplace bias, familiarity and portfolio choice," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    17. Orkun Saka, 2020. "Domestic Banks As Lightning Rods? Home Bias and Information during the Eurozone Crisis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(S1), pages 273-305, October.
    18. Saka, Orkun, 2019. "Domestic banks as lightning rods? Home bias and information during Eurozone crisis," Research Discussion Papers 3/2019, Bank of Finland.
    19. Jiang, Cuixia & Zhou, Li & Xu, Qifa & Liu, Yezheng, 2022. "Home bias in reward-based crowdfunding and its impact on financing performance: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    20. Mishra, Anil V., 2014. "Australia's home bias and cross border taxation," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 108-123.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:jeborg:v:238:y:2025:i:c:s0167268125003208. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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.