Testing for altruism and social pressure in charitable giving.

Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving Online Appendix

Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving∗ Stefano Dellavigna

Every year, 90% of Americans give money to charities. Is such generosity necessarily welfare enhancing for the giver? We present a theoretical framework that distinguishes two types of motivation: individuals like to give, for example, due to altruism or warm glow, and individuals would rather not give but dislike sayingno, forexample, duetosocial pressure. Wedesigna door-to-doorfund-raiser in ...

"Giving" in to social pressure

In light of recent evidence, we develop a theory of charitable giving in which donors feel social pressure from a direct solicitation. We show that equilibrium donations are concentrated around a social norm: donors below the norm increase giving while those above the norm reduce it. Despite a higher level of the public good, relatively poor and/or low altruism givers fare worse under social pr...

Nber Working Paper Series Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving

Every year, 90 percent of Americans give money to charities. Is such generosity necessarily welfare enhancing for the giver? We present a theoretical framework that distinguishes two types of motivation: individuals like to give, e.g., due to altruism or warm glow, and individuals would rather not give but dislike saying no, e.g., due to social pressure. We design a door-to-door fund-raising dr...

Charitable giving and reflexive individuals: How personal reflexivity mediates between structure and agency

This article examines how individuals are reflexive beings who interpret the world in relation to things that matter to them, and how charitable acts are evaluated and embedded in their lives with different degrees of meaning and importance. Rather than framing the discussion of charitable practices in terms of an altruism/egoism binary or imputing motivations and values to social structures, t...