A number of papers have posited that there is a relationship between institutional structure and pro-social behaviour, in particular donated labour, in the delivery of public services, such as health, social care and education. However, there has been very little empirical research that attempts...

The last thirty years saw dramatic increases in the proportion of children living in lone parent households. In 1997 the incoming Labour government initiated a series of policy reforms aimed at reducing this high level of child poverty. A key element of their strategy was a move towards...

There is a widespread belief that peer effects are important in charitable giving, but surprisingly little evidence on how donors respond to their peers in practice. Analysing a unique dataset of donations to online fundraising pages, we show that peer effects are positive and sizeable: a £10...

We study charitable giving within social groups. Exploiting a unique dataset, we establish three key relationships between social group size and fundraising outcomes: (i) a positive relationship between group size and the total number of donations; (ii) a negative relationship between group size...

There is a widespread belief that peer effects are important in charitable giving, but surprisingly little evidence on how donors respond to their peers. We analyse a unique dataset of donations to online fundraising pages to provide evidence on the direction and magnitude of peer effects – we...

We compare the effects of economic incentives with a “nudge” (a policy intervention that aims to influence behaviour through changing the “choice architecture”) in relation to improving dietary choices. We study a large-scale, nationally-implemented policy – the UK Healthy Start Scheme...

Using a unique field experiment we show that prompts to leave money to charity during the will-making process substantially increase the probability of making a bequest. Asking if the donor wants to leave money to charity doubles the proportion making a bequest; adding emotional and social cues...

As part of its Big Society agenda, the current Government is keen to encourage a higher level of donations of money to charitable causes. It has highlighted new technologies, new social norms and tax incentives as potential mechanisms for raising giving. This article brings together recent...

Using a tried and tested measure of management practices which has been shown to predict firm performance, we survey nearly 250 departments across 100+ UK universities. We find large differences in management scores across universities and that departments in older, research-intensive...

It is well-recognised that workers may have intrinsic – as well as extrinsic – motivations. Previous studies have identified that public sector workers typically have a higher level of intrinsic motivation, compared to workers in the private sector. This paper compares (measures of)...