This paper analyzes the geographic clustering of crowdfunding activity across two countries at the city level. We find that the ability of Kickstarter projects to attract funding or backers is spikier than the simple number of projects, suggesting that while the locations of Kickstarter projects are not as clustered, projects that are able to recruit funding are clustering. In addition, we find that Digital Media projects cluster more than Local projects. Yet, once we control for the pre-existing geographic distribution of population and economic activity, we find more complex patterns of geographic clustering. The spatial clustering of total Kickstarter funds raised is largely explained by the population and economic activity controls. Conditional on those controls, funds raised for Digital Media projects do spatially cluster, while funds raised for Local projects exhibit significant dispersion. Funding and number of backers cluster for digital media projects, above and beyond the prior concentration of socioeconomic and employment factors. Conversely, our results suggest crowdfunding can reduce or flatten the spikiness of fundraising for local projects. The world was already spiky, and it is a bit less so thanks to crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter. Acknowledgements Funding for the project was available through the Creating Digital Opportunity: Canada's ICT Industry in Global Perspective. SSHRC Partnership Grant as well as the Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Lab, a project of the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Indiana University, Purdue University—Indianapolis. The Economics Finance and Innovation (EFI) group of Politecnico di Milano provided the Kickstarter data. The Creative Class data were kindly shared by Richard Florida and the Martin Prosperity Institute. The authors thank Sana Maqbool and Nathan Stewart for providing data clean up and GIS analysis. Crowdfunding in a Not-So-Flat World Introduction: The Uneven Spatial Distribution of Crowdfunding Since at least the late 1980s, scholars observed how the development of information and communications technology (ICT) and international economic and political integration have managed to “shorten” the effective distance between spatially disparate populations. In their work, scholars claim that communication technologies create a new global network that connects places on a digital platform, which is beyond the physical location (Castells 1996). Based on the idea that these technologies and policies reduce the friction of distance between individuals, work in this area suggests that as this trend progresses, the role of space and distance as barriers to access will become less relevant across myriad domains. At the same time, several schools of thought have demonstrated that geographic location still matters. Moreover, it is not just about the location; it is about the location of certain activities in certain places. Thus, this paper analyzes the impact of a new financial platform on the location of entrepreneurial activities. Scholars studying the geographies of the internet claim that, although the internet allows for a global location, this virtual location is physically connected and is affected by that physical location (Adams and Ghose 2003; Castells 1996; Zook 2005, 2006). In the words of Zook (2012, p. 305), “The placeless logic of the space of flows allows for many types of connections between places, while the friction of distance(s) constrains what strategies are actually pursued. Distance is not dead, but it is no longer direct.” Castells compares the virtual network to a social network in which different players have different weight, depending on their connection and ability to use the network. Hence, the virtual economy has its own inequalities. Economic geographers, in particular, have focused on the differences between urban and rural users of the internet, showing in particular that early users have been dominantly located in cities. The strength of urban areas comes from the physical infrastructure of the internet (Zook 2000, 2006). The geography of finance literature tests hypotheses related to the relative “spikiness” or “flatness” of financial flows in the internet era. This body of work maintains that, although evidence exist that ICTs have somewhat succeeded in “[weakening] the well-established Christallerian hierarchy of scales” (Moriset and Malecki 2009, p. 257), the vast majority of research in the field demonstrates that the spatial distribution of finance remains heavily clustered (Martin and Pollard 2017). Similar views exist in studies of entrepreneurship and innovation. Studies show that entrepreneurship occurs in specific environments (Kerr 2018; Nijkamp 2003; Steyaert & Katz 2004). In particular, the location of entrepreneurship influences the entire entrepreneurship process, from the creation of a firm to the entrepreneurs’ ability to find venture capital. Works by Bahrami and Evans (1995), Pennings (1982), and Van de Ven (1993) developed the concept of an “entrepreneurial environment” or ecosystem to explain the influence of regional economic and social factors over the entrepreneurship process. A context such as the location should not be treated as a simple control variable or proxy; a deeper examination of how the cultural, social, political, and economic structures and processes associated with a place influence all aspects of the entrepreneurial journey is required (Stam and Spigel 2016). The importance of the location to entrepreneurship has also been validated in cultural studies in general and the creative class theory in particular. Accordingly, the arts and artists attract firms and human capital to a region that contributes to the productivity of other industries (Florida 2002). Studies claim that some cities or regions have added jobs more rapidly over time as a result of cultural industries (Tomusk 2011)—thus explaining why some geographic locations have more entrepreneurial activities than others, even if we consider the impact of the internet. However, we have a new platform that has the potential to affect the clustering of entrepreneurship, by allowing regions that were unable to access traditional finance before to receive funding from the crowd (Mollick and Robb 2016; Sorenson et al. 2016). Since the midto late 2000s, crowdfunding (CF)—the solicitation of funding from multiple individual donors via internet platforms—has become an increasingly viable means through which individuals can raise funds for a variety of project ideas, such as artistic endeavors, start-up businesses, or charitable causes. Intended to help entrepreneurs, social enterprises, and charitable organizations circumvent challenges associated with gaining access to traditional sources of finance, such as bank loans, angel investment, and venture capital, CF has opened doors for individuals who otherwise might not receive funding for their ideas, according to scholars such as Mollick and Robb (2016). Langley and Leyshon (2017, p. 1020) highlight the distinguishing feature of CF as its “ability to aggregate geographically distributed resources and assets to build a critical mass which has agency” to support new ventures. According to Yu et al. (2017), as of 2015, the amount of money successfully raised via CF platforms such as Kickstarter, goFundme, and Indiegogo totaled US$33 billion. In their 2015 CF industry report, Massolutions (2015) projected that, by 2016, funds raised by CF would surpass funds raised through venture capital in the US. CF can be broadly defined as “an open call for the provision of financial resources either in the form of donation or in exchange for some form of reward in order to support initiatives for specific purposes” (Kuppuswamy and Bayus 2015, p. 1). In practice, CF comes in five distinct models, each of which consists of a different set of project founders, backers, and motivations (Langley and Leyshon 2017; Mollick 2014). Our empirical analysis focuses on a prominent CF platform that uses a rewards-based model. In this model, project founders offer some rewards— ranging from token gestures (e.g., acknowledgment on a website) to material products (e.g., Tshirts, deluxe versions of the product) to opportunities to interact with the founders or production (e.g., the chance to be an extra in a movie, invitations to a product release party)—to backers in return for their financial support. We focus on rewards-based CF as a fast-growing (Collins et al. 2013) form of alternative finance open to start-ups and individuals, who can leverage the platform for market R&D, allowing opportunities to some very early-stage entrepreneurs and signaling to more traditional financiers (Roma et al. 2017). For smaller-scale projects in creative sectors, in particular, funding from rewards-based platforms is significant (Langley and Leyshon 2017). To understand the digital location of entrepreneurial activity, this paper analyzes the geographical clustering of CF projects. We analyze Kickstarter projects in the US and Canada from 2009 to 2014. The paper makes three contributions: First, we go beyond the geographical distribution of projects by analyzing their geography based on whether the projects or products are predominantly digital and whether they tend to be place based or grounded in a locality. Second, clustering is directly measured and evaluated conditional on location-specific factors, such as population and wealth at the city level. Lastly, our analysis is both spatially broad and detailed. It starts with a comprehensive Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping of cities, towns, and census-designated places in both countries. We use both polygon maps covering city boundaries of 32,230 cities and GIS point files with an additional 11,836 cities and towns. We find that Kickstarter projects’ ability to attract funding or backers spatially clusters more than the simple number of pro

中文翻译：

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在不那么平坦的世界中进行众筹

本文在城市层面分析了两国众筹活动的地理集群。我们发现 Kickstarter 项目吸引资金或支持者的能力比简单的项目数量更显着，这表明虽然 Kickstarter 项目的位置没有那么集群，但能够募集资金的项目是集群的。此外，我们发现数字媒体项目比本地项目集群更多。然而，一旦我们控制了人口和经济活动的预先存在的地理分布，我们就会发现更复杂的地理集群模式。Kickstarter 募集资金总额的空间聚集在很大程度上是由人口和经济活动控制来解释的。以这些控制为条件，为数字媒体项目筹集的资金会在空间上聚集，而为地方项目筹集的资金则表现出明显的分散性。数字媒体项目的资金和支持者数量集群，超出了之前社会经济和就业因素的集中度。相反，我们的结果表明，众筹可以减少或平缓本地项目筹款的紧张程度。世界已经很尖锐了，多亏了像 Kickstarter 这样的众筹平台，情况才稍微好一点。致谢 该项目的资金来自创造数字机会：全球视角下的加拿大 ICT 行业。SSHRC 合作伙伴资助以及艺术、创业和创新实验室，这是国家艺术基金会与印第安纳大学、普渡大学印第安纳波利斯分校合作的一个项目。Politecnico di Milano 的 Economics Finance and Innovation (EFI) 小组提供了 Kickstarter 数据。创意班数据由理查德佛罗里达和马丁繁荣研究所友情分享。作者感谢 Sana Maqbool 和 Nathan Stewart 提供数据清理和 GIS 分析。不那么平坦的世界中的众筹 引言：众筹的空间分布不均 至少从 1980 年代后期开始，学者们就观察到信息和通信技术 (ICT) 的发展以及国际经济和政治一体化如何设法“缩短”空间不同种群之间的有效距离。学者们在他们的工作中声称，通信技术创建了一个新的全球网络，将数字平台上的地方连接起来，这超出了物理位置（Castells 1996）。基于这些技术和政策减少了人与人之间距离摩擦的想法，该领域的工作表明，随着这一趋势的发展，空间和距离作为访问障碍的作用将在无数领域变得不那么重要。与此同时，一些思想流派已经证明，地理位置仍然很重要。此外，这不仅仅是关于位置；它是关于某些活动在某些地方的位置。因此，本文分析了新的金融平台对创业活动地点的影响。研究互联网地理的学者声称，虽然互联网允许全球定位，但这个虚拟位置是物理连接的，并受该物理位置的影响（Adams 和 Ghose 2003；Castells 1996；Zook 2005、2006）。用 Zook (2012, p. 305) 的话来说，“流动空间的无地点逻辑允许地点之间存在多种类型的联系，而距离的摩擦限制了实际采取的策略。距离并没有死，但它不再是直接的。” Castells 将虚拟网络与社交网络进行了比较，其中不同的玩家根据他们的连接和使用网络的能力而具有不同的权重。因此，虚拟经济有其自身的不平等。经济地理学家尤其关注互联网城市和农村用户之间的差异，特别表明早期用户主要位于城市。城市地区的力量来自互联网的物理基础设施（Zook 2000, 2006）。金融地理学文献检验了与互联网时代资金流动的相对“尖峰”或“平坦”相关的假设。这些工作坚持认为，尽管有证据表明 ICT 在“[削弱] 完善的克里斯塔勒等级等级制度方面取得了一定的成功”（Moriset 和 Malecki，2009 年，第 257 页），但该领域的绝大多数研究表明，金融的空间分布仍然高度集中（Martin 和 Pollard，2017 年）。类似的观点存在于创业与创新的研究中。研究表明，企业家精神发生在特定环境中（Kerr 2018；Nijkamp 2003；Steyaert & Katz 2004）。尤其是创业地点影响着整个创业过程，从公司的创立到创业者寻找风险投资的能力。Bahrami 和 Evans (1995)、Pennings (1982) 和 Van de Ven (1993) 的作品提出了“创业环境”或生态系统的概念，以解释区域经济和社会因素对创业过程的影响。诸如位置之类的上下文不应被视为简单的控制变量或代理；需要更深入地研究与一个地方相关的文化、社会、政治和经济结构和过程如何影响创业旅程的各个方面（Stam 和 Spigel 2016）。地点对创业的重要性也已在一般文化研究，特别是创意阶层理论中得到验证。因此，艺术和艺术家将公司和人力资本吸引到一个有助于其他行业生产力的地区（佛罗里达 2002）。研究声称，随着时间的推移，由于文化产业的发展，一些城市或地区的就业增加速度更快（Tomusk 2011）——这解释了为什么即使我们考虑互联网的影响，某些地理位置的创业活动也比其他地区多。然而，我们有一个新平台，它有可能影响创业集群，它允许以前无法获得传统金融的地区从人群中获得资金（Mollick and Robb 2016; Sorenson et al. 2016）。自 2000 年代中后期以来，众筹（CF）——通过互联网平台向多个个人捐赠者募集资金——已成为一种越来越可行的方式，个人可以通过这种方式为各种项目创意筹集资金，例如艺术创作、创业企业或慈善事业。CF 旨在帮助企业家、社会企业和慈善组织规避与获得传统资金来源（如银行贷款、天使投资和风险投资）相关的挑战，为那些可能无法通过其创意获得资金的个人敞开大门根据 Mollick 和 Robb (2016) 等学者的说法。Langley 和 Leyshon（2017 年，第 1020 页）强调了 CF 的显着特征，即其“能够聚合地理分布的资源和资产以建立具有代理权的临界质量”以支持新企业。根据 Yu 等人的说法。(2017)，截至2015年，通过Kickstarter、goFundme、Indiegogo等CF平台成功募集的资金总额为330亿美元。在其 2015 年 CF 行业报告中，Massolutions (2015) 预计，到 2016 年，CF筹集的资金将超过在美国通过风险投资筹集的资金。CF 可以广义地定义为“公开呼吁以捐赠的形式提供财政资源或以换取某种形式的奖励，以支持特定目的的举措”（Kuppuswamy 和 Bayus 2015，第 1 页）。在实践中，CF 有五个不同的模型，每个模型由一组不同的项目创始人、支持者和动机组成（Langley 和 Leyshon 2017；Mollick 2014）。我们的实证分析侧重于使用基于奖励的模型的著名 CF 平台。在这个模型中，项目创始人提供一些奖励——从象征性的手势（例如，在网站上的认可）到物质产品（例如，T 恤、产品的豪华版），再到与创始人或产品互动的机会（例如，在电影中加分的机会，产品发布派对的邀请）——支持者以换取他们的经济支持。我们专注于基于奖励的 CF 作为一种快速增长（Collins 等人，2013 年）的替代金融形式，向初创企业和个人开放，他们可以利用该平台进行市场研发，为一些非常早期的企业家和向更传统的金融家发出信号（Roma 等人，2017 年）。特别是对于创意行业的小规模项目，来自基于奖励的平台的资金非常重要（Langley 和 Leyshon 2017）。为了了解创业活动的数字位置，本文分析了CF项目的地理集群。我们分析了 2009 年至 2014 年在美国和加拿大的 Kickstarter 项目。本文做出了三个贡献：第一，我们超越了项目的地理分布，根据项目或产品是否主要是数字化的，以及它们是否倾向于基于地点或以当地为基础来分析它们的地理分布。其次，聚类是根据特定位置的因素直接测量和评估的，例如城市层面的人口和财富。最后，我们的分析在空间上既广泛又详细。它从绘制两国城市、城镇和人口普查指定地点的综合地理信息系统 (GIS) 地图开始。我们使用覆盖 32,230 个城市的城市边界的多边形地图和包含额外 11,836 个城镇的 GIS 点文件。我们发现 Kickstarter 项目吸引资金或支持者的能力在空间上比简单的专业人士数量更多