Sustainability-oriented institutions and the success of green reward-based crowdfunding campaigns

Previous research has produced mixed evidence on the success of green crowdfunding cam paigns. We investigate whether country-level environmental institutions help explain these inconsistencies by moderating backers’ responses. While such institutions may enhance cam paign legitimacy, they can also reduce the perceived urgency to contribute by offering alterna tive support channels. Analyzing a large Kickstarter dataset with machine learning, we find that green campaigns are less likely to succeed, particularly in countries with stronger environmental institutions. Post-hoc analyses point to a crowding-out effect of institutional support, which dampens individual backing, and suggest that omitted variable bias may partly account for prior conflicting results.