I conduct a field experiment at a charitable bookstore to provide evidence for the role of identity under "pay-what-you-want pricing". When subtly reminded of their participation in the store's membership program members paid significantly more per book then without a reminder, while this nudge...

This study designs two field experiments to estimate the effect of binding deadlines and reminders on charitable giving. We sent out 62,000 e-mails and text messages to prior donors of a large Danish charity while varying the length of the deadline and whether they received a reminder. We find...

Taxpayers are able to deduct from taxable income charitable contributions made in either cash or noncash forms. This study examines how the different tax prices of cash and noncash charitable gifts affect the mix of cash and noncash charity, using data from a balanced panel of taxpayers that...

In a series of recent experiments (Davis, Millner and Reilly, 2005, Eckel and Grossman, 2003, 2005a-c, 2006), matching subsidies generate significantly higher charity receipts than do theoretically equivalent rebate subsidies. This paper reports a laboratory experiment conducted to examine...

People tend to contribute to a charity only when they are asked to. Although this so-called 'power of asking' is a well-known technique among fundraisers, the existing literature does not pay much attention to the role of donation requests in charitable giving. We estimate the causal effects of...

Recent downward trends in corporate giving have renewed interest in the factors that shape corporate philanthropy. This paper examines the relationships between charitable contributions, firm size and industry. Improvements over previous studies include an IRS data base that covers a much...

We develop a model that allows for public goods and status signaling through charitable contributions. This model provides a unified framework in which contributions are driven both by altruism and status signaling. We use this setup to re-examine the conventional practice of rendering a...

In a series of recent experiments (Davis, Millner and Reilly, 2005, Eckel and Grossman, 2003, 2005a-c, 2006), matching subsidies generate significantly higher charity receipts than do theoretically equivalent rebate subsidies. This paper reports a laboratory experiment conducted to examine...

This paper presents a model in which anonymous charitable donations are rationalized by two human tendencies drawn from the psychology literature. The first is people's disproportionate disposition to help those they agree with while the second is the dependence of peoples' self-esteem on the...

The issue of how to best elicit charitable contributions has long been an important one for charitable organizations. Some recent studies have examined different schemes for eliciting contributions for public radio and maximizing revenue for commercial purposes. Our study is a pure field...