This study examines the impact of quality signals as proxied by third party recognition, videos, photos, GIFs, online presence, and general disclosure; and signals of trust proxied by risk disclosure, location of fundraisers, team effort and recent funding success on reward crowdfunding success. In addition, the analysis investigates and provides new evidence on the moderating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the relationship between the two types of signaling and funding success. Using data from of 21,270 campaigns posted on Kickstarter over the period July 2019 to July 2020, logistic regression models indicate a statistically significant relationship between quality/trust signals and campaigns’ funding success. Interestingly, we find that using diverse multimedia content, providing extensive information disclosure, involving a team of creators and having a track record of previous successful funding are significant determinants of reward crowdfunding success. On the contrary, the use of photos and disclosure of online presence have significant adverse effect on the likelihood of funding success. The findings also suggest that the external shock of Covid-19 pandemic only has significant interactive effects on the reward crowdfunding success for two signaling proxies, viz. Extent of risk information disclosure and external URL presence. Our findings are robust to the Difference-in-Differences model check and a range of other robustness tests.

中文翻译：

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奖励众筹成功的决定因素：来自 Covid-19 大流行的证据

本研究考察了以第三方识别、视频、照片、GIF、在线状态和一般披露为代表的质量信号的影响；以及通过风险披露、筹款人地点、团队努力和最近的融资成功来代表的信任信号来奖励众筹的成功。此外，该分析还调查了 Covid-19 大流行对两种信号与融资成功之间关系的调节作用，并提供了新的证据。使用 2019 年 7 月至 2020 年 7 月期间在 Kickstarter 上发布的 21,270 个活动的数据，逻辑回归模型表明质量/信任信号与活动融资成功之间存在统计上显着的关系。有趣的是，我们发现使用多样化的多媒体内容、提供广泛的信息披露、创作者团队的参与以及拥有先前成功融资的记录是奖励众筹成功的重要决定因素。相反，使用照片和披露在线状态会对融资成功的可能性产生显着的不利影响。研究结果还表明，Covid-19 大流行的外部冲击仅对两个信号代理的奖励众筹成功产生显着的交互影响，即：风险信息披露的程度和外部 URL 的存在。我们的研究结果对于双重差分模型检查和一系列其他稳健性测试是稳健的。