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Everyone Steps Back? The Widespread Retraction of Crowd-Funding Support for Minority Creators when Migration Fear is High

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  • John (Jianqiu) Bai
  • William R. Kerr
  • Chi Wan
  • Alptug Y. Yorulmaz

Abstract

We study funding gaps on Kickstarter across multiple ethnic groups from 2009-2021. Scaling the concept of racially salient events, we quantify the close co-movement of minority funding gaps in crowd-funding to inflamed political rhetoric surrounding migration. The funding gap for minorities more than doubles in the most inflamed periods compared to baseline. Results are especially acute for Hispanic creators. Distant, mostly white backers are typically important for projects reaching a critical threshold of funding support. Retractions in support for minority creators during tense periods are even spatially, as present in liberal cities as conservative ones.

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  • John (Jianqiu) Bai & William R. Kerr & Chi Wan & Alptug Y. Yorulmaz, 2024. "Everyone Steps Back? The Widespread Retraction of Crowd-Funding Support for Minority Creators when Migration Fear is High," NBER Working Papers 33097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33097
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D26 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Crowd-Based Firms
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups

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