LFT Lunchtime Workshop - Are Equity Crowdfunding Investors Active Investors?

5. Dezember 2019, von Internetredaktion

Foto: LFT

On Thursday, December 5, 2019, Professor Lars Hornuf will present the topic "Are Equity Crowdfunding Investors Active Investors?" at the LFT Lunchtime Workshop. The event will take place from 12:30 to 13:30 in Seminarraum 205 at the Institute of Law & Economics, Johnsallee 35.

The event will be based on one of professor Hornuf recent working papers: "It is often assumed that entrepreneurs retain more control of their venture when they opt for equity crowdfunding as compared to venture capital, notably because crowd investors are passive. We study whether crowd investors are indeed passive by analysing the cash flow and control rights crowd investors receive in equity crowdfunding in Germany where more flexible contracts are offered than in many other countries. We document that in Germany, many of the rights used in venture capital investment contracts are also used in equity crowdfunding contracts. We find that crowd investors are asked to pay higher prices if they receive more cash flow and exit rights consistent with the fact that these rights are valuable to the crowd. However, these rights have no meaningful economic impact since they do not affect campaign outcome the likelihood of securing follow-on funding nor the likelihood of liquidation of the venture. These results are inconsistent with control rights theory that predicts positive impacts and is in contrast with results documented for venture capital contracts. Rather, our results suggest that crowd investors are passive investors whose control rights are ineffective or not exercised."

Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf completed his PhD in economics at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich in 2011 and subsequently received his habilitation in the field of business administration in 2019 at the University of Regensburg. Previously he was a junior researcher at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research and a research associate at the Institute of International Law at the LMU. He has been a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, Stanford Law School, Duke University, Georgetown University, the CESifo, and the House of Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt. In 2014 he became an assistant professor of Law and Economics in the Department of Economics of Trier University. Since 2016 he has been an affiliated research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition. Recently Lars Hornuf became a full professor of business administration specialising in the areas of financial services and financial technology at the University of Bremen and an affiliate member of the CESifo Research Network. He has worked on numerous projects related to FinTechs and raised external funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the German Ministry of Finance among others. His research interests include FinTech, law and finance, and behavioural science. Media including The Economist and Foreign Policy have reported on his research findings.

Light refreshments will be available.

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