IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v65y2025i2d10.1007_s00355-024-01572-9.html

The impact of timing and type of donation decision on charitable giving

Author

Listed:
  • Marina Chugunova

    (Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition)

  • Andreas Nicklisch

    (University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons)

  • Kai-Uwe Schnapp

    (University of Hamburg)

Abstract

We study how the timing and the type of donation decisions affect charitable giving. In an online real-effort experiment with a subsistence income constraint, participants could donate to a charity either before or after they worked to generate income. We find no evidence that timing affects the propensity to donate or the amounts donated. However, if a donation is expressed as a share of future income rather than an absolute amount, more people donate and they donate larger amounts. Advance commitment does not appear to have a motivational effect on effort. Our findings suggest that requesting donations as a share of future income may enhance charitable giving.

Suggested Citation

  • Marina Chugunova & Andreas Nicklisch & Kai-Uwe Schnapp, 2025. "The impact of timing and type of donation decision on charitable giving," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 65(2), pages 427-447, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:65:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s00355-024-01572-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-024-01572-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00355-024-01572-9
    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/s00355-024-01572-9?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christoph Engel, 2011. "Dictator games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 583-610, November.
    2. Uri Gneezy & Jan Potters, 1997. "An Experiment on Risk Taking and Evaluation Periods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 631-645.
    3. Ruben Durante & Louis Putterman & Joël Weele, 2014. "Preferences For Redistribution And Perception Of Fairness: An Experimental Study," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1059-1086, August.
    4. Andreoni, James & Serra-Garcia, Marta, 2021. "Time inconsistent charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. C. Mónica Capra & Bing Jiang & Yuxin Su, 2022. "Do pledges lead to more volunteering? An experimental study," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 87-100, January.
    6. Alexander W. Cappelen & Astri Drange Hole & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 818-827, June.
    7. Todd L. Cherry & Peter Frykblom & Jason F. Shogren, 2002. "Hardnose the Dictator," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1218-1221, September.
    8. Alexander W. Cappelen & Karl O. Moene & Erik Ø. Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2013. "Needs Versus Entitlements—An International Fairness Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 574-598, June.
    9. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Nielsen, Ulrik H. & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2013. "Give and take in dictator games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 280-283.
    10. Kellner, Christian & Reinstein, David & Riener, Gerhard, 2019. "Ex-ante commitments to “give if you win” exceed donations after a win," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 109-127.
    11. Nisvan Erkal & Lata Gangadharan & Nikos Nikiforakis, 2011. "Relative Earnings and Giving in a Real-Effort Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3330-3348, December.
    12. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2015. "Corporate Philanthropy and Productivity: Evidence from an Online Real Effort Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(8), pages 1795-1811, August.
    13. Jason Dana & Roberto Weber & Jason Kuang, 2007. "Exploiting moral wiggle room: experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 33(1), pages 67-80, October.
    14. Ruben Durante & Louis Putterman & Joël Weele, 2014. "Preferences For Redistribution And Perception Of Fairness: An Experimental Study," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1059-1086, August.
    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. Vanessa Valero, 2022. "Redistribution and beliefs about the source of income inequality," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 876-901, June.
    2. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2018. "Welfare-Based Altruism," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 89, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    3. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2022. "Fairness-based Altruism," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 666, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    4. Dohmen, Thomas & Meyer, Frauke & Walkowitz, Gari, 2026. "Basic Needs Satisfaction as a Fundamental Distributive Principle: Evidence from the Lab and the Field," IZA Discussion Papers 18409, IZA Network @ LISER.
    5. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    6. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W Cappelen & Kjell G Salvanes & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2017. "Fairness and family background," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(2), pages 117-131, May.
    7. Vanessa Valero, 2021. "Redistribution and beliefs about the source of income inequality," Post-Print hal-04739469, HAL.
    8. Jain, Prachi & Lay, Margaret J., 2021. "Are informal transfers driven by strategic risk-sharing or fairness? Evidence from an experiment in Kenya," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 186-196.
    9. O. Chanel & S. Luchini & M. Teschl & A. Trannoy, 2025. "Preferences for redistributive justice: A participatory-democracy experiment," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 23(3), pages 717-747, September.
    10. Trond U Halvorsen, 2015. "Are dictators loss averse?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(4), pages 469-491, November.
    11. Tonin, Mirco & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2017. "Sharing one’s fortune? An experimental study on earned income and giving," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 112-118.
    12. Pedro Rey-Biel & Roman Sheremeta & Neslihan Uler, 2018. "When Income Depends on Performance and Luck: The Effects of Culture and Information on Giving," Research in Experimental Economics, in: Experimental Economics and Culture, volume 20, pages 167-203, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    13. Maite D. Laméris & Richard Jong-A-Pin & Rasmus Wiese, 2018. "An Experimental Test of the Validity of Survey-Measured Political Ideology," CESifo Working Paper Series 7139, CESifo.
    14. Cecchi, Francesco & Melesse, Mequanint Biset, 2016. "Formal law and customary change: A lab-in-field experiment in Ethiopia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 67-85.
    15. Pei-Hsun Hsieh & Reuben Kline, 2025. "Deservingness heuristics drive redistributive choices, but weights on recipient effort vary," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    16. Ogawa, Kazuhito & Takemoto, Toru & Takahashi, Hiromasa & Suzuki, Akihiro, 2012. "Income earning opportunity and work performance affect donating behavior: Evidence from dictator game experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 816-826.
    17. Schwaiger, Rene & Huber, Jürgen & Kirchler, Michael & Kleinlercher, Daniel & Weitzel, Utz, 2022. "Unequal opportunities, social groups, and redistribution: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    18. Laura K. Gee & Marco Migueis & Sahar Parsa, 2017. "Redistributive choices and increasing income inequality: experimental evidence for income as a signal of deservingness," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 894-923, December.
    19. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W. Cappelen & Bertil Tungodden, 2020. "Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans More Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking than Scandinavians?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1753-1788.
    20. Michele Bernasconi & Enrico Longo & Valeria Maggian, 2023. "When merit breeds luck (or not): an experimental study on distributive justice," Working Papers 2023:02, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".

    More about this item

    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:sochwe:v:65:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s00355-024-01572-9. 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.