IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/10016.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Choosing your object of benevolence: a field experiment on donation options

Author

Listed:
  • Aretz, Bodo
  • Kube, Sebastian

Abstract

In a large natural field experiment, we explore the effect of providing donors with the opportunity to choose the target country for their donations. We find that only a small fraction of donors use the option, which might reflect a reluctance to consider tradeoffs when those concern important, 'protected', values. However, those donors who choose their object of benevolence give significantly more, even when controlling for their donation history. In view of the latest research on identifable-victim effects, our findings underline that less inclusive targets can evoke more intense feelings than more inclusive ones stressing that altruistic motivation seems to be mediated by aroused empathetic emotions.

Suggested Citation

  • Aretz, Bodo & Kube, Sebastian, 2010. "Choosing your object of benevolence: a field experiment on donation options," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-016, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/30201/1/622683632.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    charitable giving; identifiable victim; field experiment; altruism; contingent valuation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10016. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.