Dynamic Charitable Giving

Andreas Grunewald, Christoph Oslislo, Frederik Schwerter and Zahra Sharafi

No 12755, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This paper studies the dynamics of charitable giving. We model giving as the accumulation of virtue capital from past giving and test the model using panel data linking 7.6 million donations to 52 fundraising letters over six years. Giving is intertemporally consistent: past giving breeds future giving, past inaction breeds future inaction. This negative consistency quantitatively dominates: fundraising appeals cause negative intertemporal spillovers on subsequent appeals. However, negative consistency fades more quickly than positive consistency. These results contribute to our understanding of dynamic prosocial behavior and inform how fundraising campaigns should time and sequence communications.

Keywords: installment giving; fundraising campaigns; virtue capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D64 D90 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12755

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