Giving as a self-control problem

Cristina Figueroa, Jantsje Mol, Ivan Soraperra and Joël Van der Weele
Additional contact information
Cristina Figueroa: University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute
Jantsje Mol: University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute
Ivan Soraperra: Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Joël Van der Weele: University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute

No 25-023/I, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: Social preferences depend on emotional states like compassion and anger. Since emotions are fleeting and subject to manipulation, they may generate demand for commitment. We investigate the use of commitment strategies in an online experiment (n=1,400), where subjects decide to watch or avoid videos before engaging in a charitable giving task. We find that a video with emotional content increases giving, but is also avoided more than non-emotional videos. We estimate a structural model of state-dependent social preferences, and show evidence for sophisticated commitment to selfishness and altruism. We argue that giving can be fruitfully analyzed as a self-control problem.

Date: 2025-03-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/25023.pdf (application/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:tin:wpaper:20250023

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().