Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving

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ID: 298542
2012
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Abstract
Every year, 90% of Americans give money to charities. Is such generosity necessarily welfare enhancing for the giver? We present a theoretical framework that distinguishes two types of motivation: individuals like to give, for example, due to altruism or warm glow, and individuals would rather not give but dislike saying no, for example, due to social pressure. We design a door-to-door fund-raiser in which some households are informed about the exact time of solicitation with a flyer on their doorknobs. Thus, they can seek or avoid the fund-raiser. We find that the flyer reduces the share of households opening the door by 9% to 25% and, if the flyer allows checking a Do Not Disturb box, reduces giving by 28% to 42%. The latter decrease is concentrated among donations smaller than $10. These findings suggest that social pressure is an important determinant of door-to-door giving. Combining data from this and a complementary field experiment, we structurally estimate the model. The estimated social pressure cost of saying no to a solicitor is $3.80 for an in-state charity and $1.40 for an out-of-state charity. Our welfare calculations suggest that our door-to-door fund-raising campaigns on average lower the utility of the potential donors.
Reference Key
openalex_W2174867431 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Stefano DellaVigna, John A. List, Ulrike Malmendier
Journal the quarterly journal of economics
Year 2012
DOI
10.1093/qje/qjr050
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjr050
Keywords Keywords not found

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