Are Sustainability-Oriented Investors Different? Evidence from Equity Crowdfunding

Lars Hornuf, Eliza Stenzhorn and Tim Vintis

No 2011, Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation from University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics

Abstract: In this article, we examine how investor motives affect investment behavior in equity crowdfunding. In particular, we compare the investment behavior of sustainability-oriented with ordinary crowd investors on six leading equity crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany and investigate whether they suffer from a default shock that was recently identified by Dorfleitner et al. (2019). In general, we find evidence of a default shock in equity crowdfunding that occurs immediately after the event or if investors experience more than two insolvencies. Moreover, we find that sustainability-oriented investors pledge larger amounts of money and invest in more campaigns than ordinary crowd investors. The results also suggest that sustainability-oriented crowd investors care about non-financial returns, as they react more sensitively after experiencing a default in their equity crowdfunding portfolios, which indicates that they suffer beyond the pure financial loss. These findings contribute to recent literature on equity crowdfunding, socially responsible investing, and how individual investment motives and personal experiences affect investment decisions.

Keywords: Equity crowdfunding; Individual investor behavior; Entrepreneurial finance; Social, ethical, and environmental investing; Socially responsible investing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G24 K22 M1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2020-05
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Published in The Journal of Technology Transfer, pp.1-28.

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https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/bitstream/elib/43 ... tors%20Different.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Are sustainability-oriented investors different? Evidence from equity crowdfunding (2022)
Working Paper: Are Sustainability-Oriented Investors Different? Evidence from Equity Crowdfunding (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:atv:wpaper:2011

DOI: 10.26092/elib/94

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