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How low can you go? Charity reporting when donations signal income and generosity

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Listed:
  • Anat Bracha
  • Lise Vesterlund

Abstract

Consistent with nonprofit fundraising practices, donation visibility has been shown to increase giving. While concern for status is used to explain this response, the authors argue that this explanation relies on the assumption that giving signals only income or generosity. When giving signals both attributes overall status need not increase in donations, and donation-visibility may be harmful when individuals prefer to be perceived as poor-and-generous rather than rich-and-stingy. Using an experiment the authors find that both income-status and generosity-status concerns affect behavior. Furthermore, donation-visibility fails to increase contributions as low-income individuals select low donation amounts that are unlikely to be attributed to high-income individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Anat Bracha & Lise Vesterlund, 2013. "How low can you go? Charity reporting when donations signal income and generosity," Working Papers 13-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbwp:13-11
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    Cited by:

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    4. Christine Exley, 2018. "Incentives for Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Reputations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2460-2471, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    charitable donations; lab experiments; status; crowding out;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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