Can You Spare Some Change For Charity? Experimental Evidence On Verbal Cues And Loose Change Effects In A Dictator Game

David Fielding and Stephen Knowles ()

No 1318, Working Papers from University of Otago, Department of Economics

Abstract: There is some evidence from field studies and natural experiments that levels of charitable donation depend on the method in which donations are solicited. There is also some experimental evidence that spending on private consumption depends on how much loose change people have. We use a simple laboratory experiment to measure the effect on donor choices of (i) whether the choices are presented verbally or non-verbally, and (ii) whether the participants have a large amount of loose change. We find strong evidence for both effects. These effects may explain some of the variation in the average level of generosity found in different Dictator Game results, and why laboratory experiments elicit levels of generosity that are often much higher than in non-laboratory settings.

Keywords: charitable giving; Dictator Game; power of asking; loose change effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2013-11, Revised 2013-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.otago.ac.nz/economics/otago085203.pdf First version, 2013 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Can you spare some change for charity? Experimental evidence on verbal cues and loose change effects in a Dictator Game (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:otg:wpaper:1318

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