Why Do People Give? Testing Pure and Impure Altruism

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ottoni-Wilhelm, Mark; Vesterlund, Lise; Xie, Huan
• 署名单位: Purdue University System; Purdue University; Purdue University in Indianapolis; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; National Bureau of Economic Research; Concordia University - Canada
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20141222
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 3617-3633
• 关键词: Public-goods experiments; private provision; Warm-glow; Donations; charity; hypothesis; BEHAVIOR; preferences; income; LIMITS

摘要

Researchers measure crowd-out around one level of charity output to identify whether giving is motivated by altruism and/or warm-glow. However, crowd-out depends on output, implying first that the power to reject pure altruism varies, and second that a single measurement of incomplete crowd-out can be rationalized by many different preferences. By instead measuring crowd-out at different output levels, we allow both for identification and for a novel and direct test of impure altruism. Using a new experimental design, we present the first empirical evidence that, consistent with impure altruism, crowd-out decreases with output.