Altruistic Behavior and Habit Formation

Harvey Rosen and Stephen Sims
Additional contact information
Harvey Rosen: Princeton University
Stephen Sims: STS Associates

No 1244, Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies.

Abstract: This paper examines whether altruistic behavior is habit forming. We take advantage of a data set that includes a rich set of information concerning individuals? donations of cash and time as adults as well as information about whether they were involved with charitable activities when they were young. The basic premise is that if altruistic behavior when young is a good predictor of such behavior in adulthood, then this is consistent with the notion that altruistic behavior is habit forming. Using U.S. data, we examine both donations of money and time, and find that engaging in charitable behavior when young is a strong predictor of adult altruistic behavior, ceteris paribus. A major issue in the interpretation of this result is that the correlation between youthful and adult altruistic behavior may be due to some third variable that affects both. While it is impossible to rule out such a possibility, we are able to control for family influences that likely could affect lifetime attitudes toward altruism. We find that, even taking this factor into account, altruistic behavior as a youth plays a significant role in explaining adult behavior. This result applies to donations of money and time to a variety of types of non-profit organizations.

Keywords: altruistic behavior; donations; nonprofit fundraising; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D19 D83 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://gceps.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/210rosen.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:cepsud:210

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bobray Bordelon ().