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It's Not the Thought that Counts: A Field Experiment on Gift Exchange and Giving at a Public University

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine C. Eckel
  • David H. Herberich
  • Jonathan Meer

Abstract

One of the most important outstanding questions in fundraising is whether donor premiums, or gifts to prospective donors, are effective in increasing donations. Donors may be motivated by reciprocity, making premium recipients more likely to donate and give larger donations. Or donors may dislike premiums, preferring instead to maximize the value of their donations to the charity; in this case donor premiums would be ineffective. We conduct a field experiment in conjunction with the fundraising campaign of a major university to examine these questions. Treatments include a control, an unconditional premium with two gift quality levels, and a set of conditional premium treatments. The conditional treatments include opt-out and opt-in conditions to test whether donors prefer to forego premiums. Compared with the control, donors are twice as likely to give when they receive an unconditional, high-quality gift. The low-quality unconditional and all conditional premiums have little impact on the likelihood or level of giving. Donors do not respond negatively to premiums: rates of giving do not suffer when premiums are offered. In addition, few opt out given the opportunity to do so, indicating that they like gifts, and suggesting that reciprocity rather than altruism determines the impact of premiums on giving.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine C. Eckel & David H. Herberich & Jonathan Meer, 2016. "It's Not the Thought that Counts: A Field Experiment on Gift Exchange and Giving at a Public University," NBER Working Papers 22867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22867
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Jonathan Meer, 2013. "The Habit Of Giving," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(4), pages 2002-2017, October.
    5. Newman, George E. & Jeremy Shen, Y., 2012. "The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 973-983.
    6. Craig E. Landry & Andreas Lange & John A. List & Michael K. Price & Nicholas G. Rupp, 2011. "Is There a 'Hidden Cost of Control' in Naturally-Occurring Markets? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 17472, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Lacetera, Nicola & Macis, Mario, 2010. "Do all material incentives for pro-social activities backfire? The response to cash and non-cash incentives for blood donations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 738-748, August.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Gallier, Carlo & Goeschl, Timo & Kesternich, Martin & Lohse, Johannes & Reif, Christiane & Römer, Daniel, 2023. "Inter-charity competition under spatial differentiation: Sorting, crowding, and spillovers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 457-468.
    2. Levin, Tova & Levitt, Steven D. & List, John A., 2023. "A Glimpse into the world of high capacity givers: Experimental evidence from a university capital campaign," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 644-658.
    3. Meer, Jonathan, 2017. "Does fundraising create new giving?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 82-93.
    4. Castillo, Marco & Petrie, Ragan, 2020. "Optimal Incentives to Give," IZA Discussion Papers 13321, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. K. Sudhir & Hortense Fong & Subroto Roy, 2019. "Greedy or Grateful? Asking for More when Thanking Donors," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2183R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Mar 2021.
    6. Matthew Chao & Geoffrey Fisher, 2022. "Self-Interested Giving: The Relationship Between Conditional Gifts, Charitable Donations, and Donor Self-Interestedness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4537-4567, June.
    7. José A. Pellerano & Michael K. Price & Steven L. Puller & Gonzalo E. Sánchez, 2017. "Do Extrinsic Incentives Undermine Social Norms? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Energy Conservation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(3), pages 413-428, July.
    8. K. Sudhir & Hortense Fong & Subroto Roy, 2014. "Greedy or Grateful" Asking for More when Thanking Donors," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2183, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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