IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-13-00647.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the private exchange of charitable gifts

Author

Listed:
  • Diego Nocetti

    (Clarkson University)

Abstract

The private exchange of charitable gifts (e.g. charity gift-cards) has recently become an important source of donations to charities. In this paper we study this new phenomenon using the classical model of private provision of public goods, modified to account for exchange of private gifts. Contrary to intuition, we show that a change in social norms characterized by an increase in the amount spent on charitable gifts and a decrease in the amount spent on traditional gifts can decrease the total supply of donations. The magnitude of the change in donations depends on the contributors' degree of altruism, the efficiency of traditional gifts relative to a monetary gift, and the efficiency of charitable gifts in generating warm-glow.

Suggested Citation

  • Diego Nocetti, 2014. "On the private exchange of charitable gifts," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(1), pages 73-83.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00647
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2014/Volume34/EB-14-V34-I1-P8.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roberts, Russell D, 1984. "A Positive Model of Private Charity and Public Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 136-148, February.
    2. Carmichael, H Lorne & MacLeod, W Bentley, 1997. "Gift Giving and the Evolution of Cooperation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(3), pages 485-509, August.
    3. Warr, Peter G., 1982. "Pareto optimal redistribution and private charity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 131-138, October.
    4. Waldfogel, Joel, 1993. "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1328-1336, December.
    5. Bolton, Gary E. & Katok, Elena, 1998. "An experimental test of the crowding out hypothesis: The nature of beneficent behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 315-331, November.
    6. Andreoni, James, 1993. "An Experimental Test of the Public-Goods Crowding-Out Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1317-1327, December.
    7. Ruffle, Bradley J., 1999. "Gift giving with emotions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 399-420, July.
    8. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J. & Johnston, Rachel M., 2005. "An experimental test of the crowding out hypothesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(8), pages 1543-1560, August.
    9. Andreoni, James, 1989. "Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1447-1458, December.
    10. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    11. Crumpler, Heidi & Grossman, Philip J., 2008. "An experimental test of warm glow giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1011-1021, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gallier, Carlo & Reif, Christiane & Römer, Daniel, 2014. "Consistent or balanced? On the dynamics of voluntary contributions," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-060, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Arbel, Yuval & Bar-El, Ronen & Schwarz, Mordechai E. & Tobol, Yossef, 2019. "To What Do People Contribute? Ongoing Operations vs. Sustainable Supplies," IZA Discussion Papers 12180, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Gandullia, Luca & Lezzi, Emanuela & Parciasepe, Paolo, 2020. "Replication with MTurk of the experimental design by Gangadharan, Grossman, Jones & Leister (2018): Charitable giving across donor types," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm & Lise Vesterlund & Huan Xie, 2017. "Why Do People Give? Testing Pure and Impure Altruism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3617-3633, November.
    5. Ferguson, Eamonn & Flynn, Niall, 2016. "Moral relativism as a disconnect between behavioural and experienced warm glow," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 163-175.
    6. Crumpler, Heidi & Grossman, Philip J., 2008. "An experimental test of warm glow giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1011-1021, June.
    7. Korenok, Oleg & Millner, Edward L. & Razzolini, Laura, 2013. "Impure altruism in dictators' giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-8.
    8. David Fielding & Stephen Knowles & Ronald Peeters, 2022. "In search of competitive givers," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(4), pages 1517-1548, April.
    9. Becker, Gary S. & Elias, Julio Jorge & Ye, Karen J., 2022. "The shortage of kidneys for transplant: Altruism, exchanges, opt in vs. opt out, and the market for kidneys," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 211-226.
    10. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J. & Johnston, Rachel M., 2005. "An experimental test of the crowding out hypothesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(8), pages 1543-1560, August.
    11. Gallier, Carlo & Reif, Christiane & Römer, Daniel, 2017. "Repeated pro-social behavior in the presence of economic interventions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 18-28.
    12. Prendergast, Canice, 2023. "Organizational design for making a difference," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    13. Konow, James, 2010. "Mixed feelings: Theories of and evidence on giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 279-297, April.
    14. Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Kristy Jones, 2014. "Deconstructing Giving: Donor Types and How They Give," Monash Economics Working Papers 53-14, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    15. Gangadharan, Lata & Grossman, Philip J. & Jones, Kristy & Leister, C. Matthew, 2018. "Paternalistic giving: Restricting recipient choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 143-170.
    16. Raúl López-Pérez & Aldo Ramírez-Almudio, 2020. "Why people give to their governments: The role of outcome-oriented norms," Working Papers 2007, Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos (IPP), CSIC.
    17. Diederich, Johannees & Goeschl, Timo, 2014. "Motivational Drivers of the Private Provision of Public Goods: Evidence From a Large Framed Field Experiment," Working Papers 0561, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    18. Julia Bredtmann & Fernanda Martinez Flores, 2023. "Does government spending crowd out voluntary labor and donations?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 299-299, January.
    19. Carpenter, Jeffrey, 2021. "The shape of warm glow: Field experimental evidence from a fundraiser," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 555-574.
    20. Roman M. Sheremeta & Neslihan Uler, 2021. "The impact of taxes and wasteful government spending on giving," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 355-386, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Charitable gifts; warm-glow; public goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00647. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.