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Measuring strength of altruistic motives

Author

Listed:
  • Nathan W. Chan

    (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

  • Stephen Knowles

    (University of Otago)

  • Ronald Peeters

    (University of Otago)

  • Leonard Wolk

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Abstract

We introduce a novel way to elicit individuals’ strength of altruistic motivation in the context of charitable donations, ranging from pure warm glow to pure altruism. Using the giving-type elicitation task of Gangadharan et al. (2018) and assuming that individuals maximise a Cobb–Douglas impure altruism utility function, as is used in Ottoni-Wilhelm et al. (2017), we can uniquely identify the strength of altruistic motivation for impure altruists, which is typically found to be the largest category of donors. We compare the introduced measure to an alternative survey-based elicitation from Carpenter (2021).

Suggested Citation

  • Nathan W. Chan & Stephen Knowles & Ronald Peeters & Leonard Wolk, 2024. "Measuring strength of altruistic motives," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 595-602, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jesaex:v:10:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1007_s40881-024-00170-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s40881-024-00170-w
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Charitable giving; Generosity; Motivation; Warm glow; Altruism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods

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