Giving and Probability

Christian Keller, David Reinstein (), Gerhard Riener and Michael Sanders ()

The Centre for Market and Public Organisation from The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract: When and how should a fundraiser ask for a donation from an individual facing an uncertain bonus income? A standard model of expected utility over outcomes predicts that the individual’s before choice – her ex-ante commitment conditional on her income – will be the same as her choice after the income has been revealed. Deciding “if you win, how much will you donate?” involves a commitment (i) over a donation for a state of the world that may not be realized and (ii) over uncertain income. Models involving reference-dependent utility, tangibility, and self-signaling predict more giving before, while theories of affect predict more giving after. In our online field experiment at a UK university, as well as in our laboratory experiments in Germany, charitable giving was significantly larger in the Before treatment than in the After treatment for male subjects, with a significant gender differential.

JEL-codes: C91 D01 D64 D84 L30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2015-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Giving and Probability (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bri:cmpowp:15/336

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