A Glimpse into the World of High Capacity Givers: Experimental Evidence from a University Capital Campaign

Tova Levin, Steven Levitt and John List

No 22099, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The wealthiest 10% of donors now give 90% of charitable dollars in the U.S., but little is known about what motivates them. Using a natural field experiment on over 5,000 high capacity donors, we find persistence in giving patterns, that signals of program quality influence giving, and that the price of giving is not unduly important. Unlike typical small donors, our givers respond only on the intensive margin, and often with a longer time lag. Our study highlights the value to practitioners of partnering with academics, as our intervention has generated $30 million in incremental donations to the University.

JEL-codes: C93 H4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-soc
Note: PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published as Tova Levin & Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2023. "A Glimpse into the world of high capacity givers: Experimental evidence from a university capital campaign," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, vol 212, pages 644-658.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22099.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A Glimpse into the world of high capacity givers: Experimental evidence from a university capital campaign (2023)
Working Paper: A Glimpse into the World of High Capacity Givers: Experimental Evidence from a University Capital Campaign (2015)
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:nbr:nberwo:22099

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22099

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().