IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/reecde/v21y2017i4d10.1007_s10058-017-0207-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning by fund-raising

Author

Listed:
  • Alvaro J. Name-Correa

    (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

Abstract

From experience, fund-raisers become more efficient solicitors. This paper offers a full characterization of the optimal solicitation strategy when there are learning economies. The characterization is recursive, and does not require equilibrium computations. Our main results are that (1) the fund-raiser may now solicit a “ net free-rider”—a donor whose contribution falls below the marginal solicitation cost; (2) the number of solicitations is non-monotonic in the learning rate; and (3) a solicitation technology with high overhead but low marginal costs is likely to be optimal if income distribution in the population is relatively homogenous. The complementary case with a decreasing returns to scale technology is also considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Alvaro J. Name-Correa, 2017. "Learning by fund-raising," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 21(4), pages 291-316, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:reecde:v:21:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s10058-017-0207-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10058-017-0207-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10058-017-0207-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10058-017-0207-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leslie M. Marx & Steven A. Matthews, 2000. "Dynamic Voluntary Contribution to a Public Project," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(2), pages 327-358.
    2. Alvaro J. Name-Correa & Huseyin Yildirim, 2013. "A Theory of Charitable Fund-Raising with Costly Solicitations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 1091-1107, April.
    3. Patrick Bolton & Christopher Harris, 1999. "Strategic Experimentation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 349-374, March.
    4. Roberts, Russell D, 1987. "Financing Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(2), pages 420-437, April.
    5. Warr, Peter G., 1983. "The private provision of a public good is independent of the distribution of income," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 207-211.
    6. John A. List, 2011. "The Market for Charitable Giving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(2), pages 157-180, Spring.
    7. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    8. Argote, L. & Epple, D., 1990. "Learning Curves In Manufacturing," GSIA Working Papers 89-90-02, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    9. Jacques Cremer & Michael H. Riordan, 1987. "On Governing Multilateral Transactions with Bilateral Contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(3), pages 436-451, Autumn.
    10. Andreoni, James & McGuire, Martin C., 1993. "Identifying the free riders : A simple algorithm for determining who will contribute to a public good," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 447-454, July.
    11. A. M. Spence, 1981. "The Learning Curve and Competition," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(1), pages 49-70, Spring.
    12. C. Lanier Benkard, 2000. "Learning and Forgetting: The Dynamics of Aircraft Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    13. Susan Rose-Ackerman, 1982. "Charitable Giving and “Excessive†Fundraising," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(2), pages 193-212.
    14. James Andreoni & A. Abigail Payne, 2003. "Do Government Grants to Private Charities Crowd Out Giving or Fund-raising?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 792-812, June.
    15. McAfee, R Preston & Schwartz, Marius, 1994. "Opportunism in Multilateral Vertical Contracting: Nondiscrimination, Exclusivity, and Uniformity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 210-230, March.
    16. Paskalev, Zdravko & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2017. "A theory of outsourced fundraising: Why dollars turn into “Pennies for Charity”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1-18.
    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. Name Correa, Álvaro, 2014. "Learning by Fund-raising," UC3M Working papers. Economics we1408, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    2. Huseyin Yildirim & Alvaro Name Correa, 2011. "A Theory of Charitable Fund-Raising with Costly Solicitations," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000222, David K. Levine.
    3. Paskalev, Zdravko & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2017. "A theory of outsourced fundraising: Why dollars turn into “Pennies for Charity”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1-18.
    4. Gong, Ning & Grundy, Bruce D., 2014. "The design of charitable fund-raising schemes: Matching grants or seed money," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 147-165.
    5. Yildirim, Huseyin, 2014. "Andreoni–McGuire algorithm and the limits of warm-glow giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 101-107.
    6. Tobias Cagala & Ulrich Glogowsky & Johannes Rincke & Anthony Strittmatter, 2021. "Optimal Targeting in Fundraising: A Machine-Learning Approach," Economics working papers 2021-08, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. Name-Correa, Alvaro J. & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2016. "“Giving” in to social pressure," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 99-116.
    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. Tobias Cagala & Ulrich Glogowsky & Johannes Rincke & Anthony Strittmatter, 2021. "Optimal Targeting in Fundraising: A Causal Machine-Learning Approach," Papers 2103.10251, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    10. Han Jiang & Aggey Simons, 2021. "Charitable Giving and NPOs Investment Decision in a Stochastic Dynamic Economy," Working Papers 2113E Classification-H41., University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    11. Diamond, Peter, 2006. "Optimal tax treatment of private contributions for public goods with and without warm glow preferences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 897-919, May.
    12. Amihai Glazer, 2014. "The Profit-maximizing Non-profit," Working Papers 131404, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    13. James Andreoni, 1998. "Toward a Theory of Charitable Fund-Raising," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1186-1213, December.
    14. Wolfgang Buchholz & Richard Cornes & Dirk T. G. Rübbelke, 2009. "Existence and Warr Neutrality for Matching Equilibria in a Public Good Economy: An Aggregative Game Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 2884, CESifo.
    15. Morath, Florian, 2010. "Strategic information acquisition and the mitigation of global warming," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 206-217, March.
    16. Romano, Richard & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2001. "Why charities announce donations: a positive perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 423-447, September.
    17. Buchholz, Wolfgang & Nett, Lorenz & Peters, Wolfgang, 1998. "The strategic advantage of being less skilled," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 35-39, July.
    18. TOSHIHIRO IHORI & MARTIN C. McGUIRE, 2007. "Collective Risk Control and Group Security: The Unexpected Consequences of Differential Risk Aversion," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 9(2), pages 231-263, April.
    19. Koji Kotani & Makoto Kakinaka, 2017. "Some implications of environmental regulation on social welfare under learning-by-doing of eco-products," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(1), pages 121-149, January.
    20. Scharf, Kimberley & Smith, Sarah, 2016. "Relational altruism and giving in social groups," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 1-10.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fund-raising; Solicitation cost; Charitable giving;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

    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:spr:reecde:v:21:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s10058-017-0207-7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.