Too cold for warm glow? Christmas-season effects in charitable giving

Stephan Müller and Holger A. Rau

No 331, University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics from University of Goettingen, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper analyzes seasonal effects and their potential drivers in charitable giving. We analyze whether donations differ between the pre-Christmas shopping season and summer. Our experiment aims to minimize confounding factors and controls for donor heterogeneity. We find that prosocial subjects significantly reduce donations by almost one half in the pre-Christmas shopping season. We identify stress and savings as significant drivers of this result. First, the higher subjects' reported stress level in the Christmas season relative to the rest of the year, the lower donations. Second, the higher relative savings, the lower giving. The findings provide managerial insights for the timing and design of fundraising campaigns.

Keywords: Charitable Giving; Experiment; Seasonal Effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cegedp:331

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