Donations to US based NGOs in International Development Cooperation: How (Un-)Informed Are Private Donors?

Peter Nunnenkamp and Hannes Öhler ()

No 72, Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers from Courant Research Centre PEG

Abstract: Apart from scaling up foreign aid by NGOs, informed choices of private donors could also encourage an efficient and targeted use of NGO funds in international development cooperation. We assess the determinants of private donations across a large sample of US based NGOs with foreign aid activities. OLS and 2SLS estimations indicate that donors hardly make use of publicly available information on NGO characteristics, notably the “price of giving” and the degree of specialization, when deciding on donations. They rather rely on the frequently offered option to designate donations to preferred purposes – even though this behavior would be rational only under conditions that are unlikely to hold.

Keywords: non-governmental organizations; specialization; private donations; informed choices; price of giving; option to designate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 F35 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-02-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis
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Related works:
Working Paper: Donations to US based NGOs in international development cooperation: How (un-)informed are private donors? (2011)
Working Paper: Donations to US based NGOs in international development cooperation: How (un-)informed are private donors? (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:got:gotcrc:072

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