We use a novel identification strategy to shed light on the effect of grant funding. We focus on charities that applied to a UK lottery grant programme. Where charities score the same on formal criteria, it is likely that informal criteria orthogonal to quality are used to break the ties,...

When the government gives a grant to a private charitable organization, do the donors to that organization give less? If they do, is it because the grants crowd out donors who feel they gave through taxes (classic crowd out), or is it because the grant crowds out the fundraising of the charities...

To understand the "pure" incentives of altruism, economic laboratory research on humans almost always forbids communication between subjects. In reality, however, altruism usually requires interaction between givers and receivers, which clearly must influence choices. Charities, for example,...