Charitable giving by the poor: A field experiment on matching and distance to charitable output in Kyrgyzstan

Maja Adena, Rustamdjan Hakimov and Steffen Huck

Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change from WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Abstract: Previous studies of charitable giving have focused on middle or higher income earners in Western countries, neglecting the poor. Despite this focus, the lowest income groups are often shown to contribute substantial shares of their income to charitable causes. In a large-scale natural field experiment with over 180,000 cli-ents of a micro-lending company in Kyrgyzstan, we study charitable giving by a population that is much poorer relative to the typical donors that have been stud-ied so far. In a 2x2 design, we explore two main hypotheses about giving by the poor: (i) that they are more price sensitive and (ii) that they care about their prox-imity to the charitable project. We find evidence in favor of the former hypothesis but not of the latter.

Keywords: Charitable giving; field experiments; matching donations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D12 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wzbeoc:spii2019305

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