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Charity Begins at Home: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment on Charitable Giving

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine C. Eckel

    (Department of Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Benjamin A. Priday

    (Department of Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Rick K. Wilson

    (Department of Political Science, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA)

Abstract

Charities operate at different levels: national, state, or local. We test the effect of the level of the organization on charitable giving in a sample of adults in two Texas communities. Subjects make four charitable giving “dictator game” decisions from a fixed amount of money provided by the experimenter. Three decisions target different charitable organizations, all of which have a disaster-relief mission, but differ in the level of operation. The fourth targets an individual recipient, identified by the local fire department as a victim of a fire. One of the four is selected randomly for payment. Giving is significantly higher to national and local organizations compared to state. We find a higher propensity to donate and larger amount donated to the individual relative to all organizations. Subsequent analysis compares a number of demographic and attitudinal covariates with donations to specific charities. In a second decision, subjects instead indicate which of their four prior decisions they would most prefer to implement. Here we see that a majority of subjects prefer the gift to the individual.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine C. Eckel & Benjamin A. Priday & Rick K. Wilson, 2018. "Charity Begins at Home: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment on Charitable Giving," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-22, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:9:y:2018:i:4:p:95-:d:184200
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Livingston, Jeffrey A. & Rasulmukhamedov, Rustam, 2023. "On the Interpretation of Giving in Dictator Games When the Recipient is a Charity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 275-285.

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