REGIONAL SOCIAL CAPITAL AND BACKER SENTIMENT FOR SUCCESSFUL CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGNS

Local social capital, defined as the level of community interaction and social participation of a region, has been theorized to positively affect economic outcomes and discourage opportunistic behaviors in various settings. I examine whether local social capital is related to positive outcomes for entrepreneurs and their financial backers in the settings of reward crowdfunding and small business lending.
In my first study, I look at how local social capital influences the creators of successful reward crowdfunding campaigns. These creators, in turn, may influence the sentiment of their investors, or backers, towards their projects through missed delivery deadlines and poor communication. With comments collected from successful Kickstarter crowdfunding pages, I use textual analysis to construct a measure of the sentiment of project backers following the fundraising deadline.