The ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ as an Antidote to the Credit Crunch: A Preliminary Analysis of Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a very recent financial (and social) phenomenon all over the world. When we met at the beginning of our research effort, analysing the different topics and issues arising with reference to crowdfunding, we decided that an interdisciplinary and pluralistic approach was the best path to understanding the phenomenon from a theoretical and methodological point of view. The literature about crowdfunding has very few academic contributions at the international level, and we find more practitioners’ and institutional attention than academicians’ [see Sections 2 and 3]. Putting together banking and finance, economics and statistics’ perspectives and tools is, in our opinion, a good way to develop the research about crowd-funding in a deeper mood.