We review the economics of superstars, originally developed for stars in traditional media, and discuss whether they are applicable for the (allegedly) novel phenomenon of stars in social media (influencer, micro-celebrities). Moreover, we analyse potentially new factors for creating social...

Economic activities such as crowdfunding often involve sequential interactions, observational learning, and project implementation contingent on achieving certain thresholds of support. We incorporate endogenous all-or-nothing thresholds in a classic model of information cascade. We find that...

Certification by online analysts and early investors can generate excitement among potential token investors, leading to successful initial coin offerings (ICOs). We test the general notion of "wisdom of crowds" using novel data on nearly 3,400 ICOs, including sequential investor subscriptions...

Can crowdfunding benefit entrepreneurs beyond providing finance? This paper shows that crowdfunding extends early feedback to entrepreneurs about the market demand for their projects, thereby mitigating uncertainty associated with entry. Using Kickstarter data and exploiting a weather-based...

While both errors of overoptimism and errors of overpessimism are possible in the face of imperfect information, the presence of option value from deferring a decision to exchange causes trader errors to be overpessimistically biased. This is problematic because unlike errors of overoptimism,...

To truly create new value, you need a theory. A theory helps you see what others can't see. Contrarian or unique beliefs provide the underlying raw material of a firm's theory of value. But beliefs are just rhetoric and cheap talk, unless you identify the specific obstacles and problems that...

Besides providing financial support for new ventures, crowdfunding can bring additional advantages for entrepreneurs. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that crowdfunding also serves as an informational mechanism. Using a unique dataset built with publicly available data from Internet-based...

Industrial policies of innovation concentrate on funding or encouraging promising innovations entailing growth or that have possibilities of internationalization. However, concrete innovation process happens in and between individuals. Effectuation is a logic that is emergent and iterative in...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, new financial technology (fintech) start-ups have emerged to challenge the long-established position of financial services incumbents. Drawing on resource-based theory and institutional theory, we investigate how the emergence of fintech start-ups...

This paper studies how critical entrepreneurial finance outcomes such as the investment return and equity division are shaped by venture characteristics, financier risk preferences and competitive searching. Our analysis uses a double-hazard agency model in which financiers determine the equity...