Threshold Effect in Crowdfunding: Evidence from Investment-Level Data

Crowdfunding has become an increasingly attractive way of financing for capital-constrained enterprises. It differs from traditional financing methods, such as bank credit and trade credit, along several dimensions. In this paper, we explore the threshold effect in crowdfunding from the perspective of dynamic investment behavior. Using the investment level data from a large crowdfunding website in China, we establish a panel threshold model. Specifically, we have the following three aspects of interesting findings. First, the number of investors will increase dramatically when the investment amount is close to the threshold. Second, the herding behavior before the threshold interval is more obvious than after that. Third, to explore the internal mechanism of the threshold effect, we deduce three impact factors: fundraising target, crowdfunding price, and fundraising duration. We find that the first two moderator factors above have positive moderating effects, while fundraising duration has the opposite one. Our results support the assumptions of return on investment and postponed decision making. Finally, we further conduct our analysis through a battery of robustness tests. Our study could help crowdfunding creators to better manage the threshold effect.