Crowdfunding has become an important financing alternative for micro-entrepreneurship. We study to what extent bias toward local entrepreneurs is prevalent in crowdfunding markets, determine the main driving forces for such bias, and examine how crowdfunding platforms and policymakers can leverage these forces to stimulate micro-entrepreneurship. Even though online crowdfunding platforms are designed to overcome geographic barriers, we find evidence of strong local bias induced by both informational frictions and local preference, with the former being more important.
The article discusses how attribute-based subsidy (ABS) designs lead to higher product quality and more effectively mitigate market power than uniform subsidies, albeit with a modest environmental cost.
By comparing business loans made by a BigTech bank with those made by traditional banks, this study finds that BigTech loans tend to be smaller, and the BigTech lender is more likely to grant credit to new borrowers than conventional banks in response to expansionary monetary policy.
We examine the effect of large-scale administrative reorganization in China, where counties are annexed into cities to accommodate urban growth.
We investigate whether and how environmentally inclined politicians (EIPs), i.e., politicians with prior environment-related work experience, affect local environmental performance in China.