Giving To Ingrates?*

* We thank David Bruner for his assistance in running these experiments and the University of Calgary Behavioural and Experimental Economics Laboratory for providing the facilities to conduct the experiments. Funding for this project was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) via a grant to McKee. 2 ABSTRACT Models for voluntary provision of public goods predict free riding is rational unless the model includes a motive for the act of giving referred to as a " warm glow " in the literature. The source for this warm glow is likely to include the gratitude of the recipient. The experimental setting employed here controls for positive or negative reciprocity from the recipient of a gift to isolate the individual satisfaction from the act of giving as the remaining motivation for giving. The experimental treatment is whether the recipient is informed that his/her payoff includes a " gift " from another participant (donor or giver). The central finding is that donations increase when the donor/giver knows that the recipient knows that a gift has been provided.