WILL THERE BE BLOOD? INCENTIVES AND SUBSTITUTION EFFECTS IN PRO-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR*

Nicola Lacetera, Mario Macis and Robert Slonim

No 2010-02, Working Papers from University of Sydney, School of Economics

Abstract: We present evidence from observational data on nearly 14,000 American Red Cross blood drives and from a randomized natural field experiment showing that economic incentives have a positive effect on blood donations without increasing the fraction of donors who come to a drive but are ineligible to donate. We also show that the effect of incentives on donations increases with the incentive's economic value. However, we further show that a substantial proportion of the increase in donations due to incentives may be explained by donors leaving neighboring drives without incentives to attend the drive with incentives, and the likelihood of this substitution is higher the higher the monetary value of the incentive offered. We conclude that extrinsic incentives stimulate pro-social behavior, but, unless substitution effects are also considered, the effect of incentives may be overesti mated.

Date: 2010-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://hdl.handle.net/2123/6958

Related works:
Working Paper: Will There Be Blood? Incentives and Substitution Effects in Pro-social Behavior (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:syd:wpaper:2123/6958

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