The Prevalence and Price Sensitivity of Altruism Two Field Experiments with Dictator Games Among a Random Sample of the Dutch Population

This paper presents two field studies of altruistic behavior among random samples of the Dutch population using modified versions of the dictator game. In the ordinary dictator game, university students devide an endowment received at the beginning of the experiment between themselves and an ‘anonymous other’. In study 1, a large, representative sample of the Dutch population (n=1,964), played an ‘All-or-Nothing’ version of the dictator game with earnings instead of endowments, and charities identified as recipients. An overwhelming majority of 95% kept the earnings for themselves, although only a single blind procedure was used. Study 2 investigates the price sensitivity of giving in a wider variety of dictator games, reducing the costs of a donation under two different framing conditions among a subsample (n=1,036) of the participants in study 1 two years later. Price reductions strongly increase donations, but framing the subsidy as a matching mechanism increases generosity more strongly than framing the subsidy as a (mathematically equivalent) rebate. JEL