 Mixed signals: Charity reporting when donations signal generosity and incomeAnat Bracha and Lise Vesterlund Games and Economic Behavior, 2017, vol. 104, issue C, 24-42 Abstract: False inference may be drawn in asymmetric information environments where the type space is multi-dimensional and the analysis is restricted to only one of those dimensions. We demonstrate this by studying donation-visibility in a charitable-giving environment. Past studies show that donation-visibility increases giving and argue that this is consistent with donations signaling generosity or income and thereby improving donors' status. However, this explanation relies on status being one-dimensional, acquired from only one attribute: generosity or income. The response may differ when instead status is multi-dimensional, depending on both attributes. Donors who prefer to be perceived as poor-and-generous rather than rich-and-stingy may give less when donations are visible. Using an experiment we examine the effect of donation-visibility when donations can signal multiple attributes. Revealing concerns for both income- and generosity-status, we find, in contrast to the one-attribute setting, that donation-visibility does not increase giving when donations signal both attributes. Keywords: Signaling in a multi-dimensional type space; Charitable donations; Status; Donation visibility (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:104:y:2017:i:c:p:24-42 DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.03.001 Access Statistics for this article Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier |
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