We propose a model of charity competition in which informed giving alone can explain quality heterogeneity across similar charities. It is this heterogeneity that also creates the demand for information. In equilibrium, too few donors pay to be informed; but interestingly, informed giving may...

Evidence suggests that donors have little demand for information before giving to charity. To understand this behavior and its policy implications, we present a model in which each individual can acquire costly information about her true value of charity. We observe that an individual who...

Charities frequently rely on professional solicitors whose commissions exceed half of total donations. To understand this practice, we propose a principal-agent model in which the charity optimally offers a higher commission to a more “efficient” solicitor, raising the price of giving...

We present a theory of charitable fund-raising in which it is costly to solicit donors. We fully characterize the optimal solicitation strategy that maximizes donations net of fundraising costs. The optimal strategy dictates that the fund-raiser target only those individuals whose equilibrium...

This paper provides a full equilibrium characterization of warm-glow giving à la Andreoni (1989, 1990) by extending the Andreoni-McGuire (1993) algorithm. The characterization indexes individuals according to their free-riding or “dropout” levels of the public good. The dropout level is...

Why do committees exist? The extant literature emphasizes that they pool dispersed information across members. In this paper, we argue that they may also serve to discourage outside influence or capture by raising its cost. As such, committees may contain members who add no new information to...

We examine the consequences of vote transparency in committees whose members fear being blamed by partisan observers for casting an unfavorable vote. We show that such social pressure, like optimal taxation, can improve the collective decision by mitigating a voting externality. Hence,...

I examine a sequential bargaining situation in which agents compete to propose by expending (unproductive) efforts. Depending on the timing of efforts, I consider two types of "recognition" to select the proposer. Whereas "persistent" recognition refers to cases where competition to propose...