Ex-ante commitments to give if you win exceed donations after a win

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kellner, Christian; Reinstein, David; Riener, Gerhard
• 署名单位: University of Southampton; University of Exeter; Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.10.009
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 109-127
• 关键词: social preferences; Contingent decision-making; signaling; field experiments; Charitable giving

摘要

Should fundraisers ask a banker to donate if he earns a bonus or wait and ask after the bonus is known? Standard EU theory predicts that these approaches are equivalent; loss-aversion and signaling models predict a larger commitment before the bonus is known; theories of affect predict the reverse. In five experiments incorporating lab and field elements (N=1363), we solicited charitable donations from small lottery winnings, varying the conditionality of donations between participants. Pooling across experiments, participants are 23% more likely to commit to donate from the winning income and commit 25% more when asked before the lottery's outcome is determined-relative to those asked to donate after they learn they have won. These differences are strongly statistically significant. This represents the first evidence on how pro-social behavior extends to conditional commitments over uncertain income, with implications for charitable fundraising, giving pledges, and experimental methodology. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.