Society's demands for individual and corporate social responsibility as an alternative response to market and distributive failures are becoming increasingly prominent. We first draw on recent developments in the psychology and economics of prosocial behavior to shed light on this trend, which...

Society's demands for individual and corporate social responsibility as an alternative response to market and distributive failures are becoming increasingly prominent. We first draw on recent developments in the 'psychology and economics' of prosocial behavior to shed light on this trend, which...

Society's demands for individual and corporate social responsibility as an alternative response to market and distributive failures are becoming increasingly prominent. We first draw on recent developments in the "psychology and economics" of prosocial behavior to shed light on this trend, which...

Society’s demands for individual and corporate social responsibility as an alternative response to market and distributive failures are becoming increasingly prominent. We first draw on recent developments in the “psychology and economics” of prosocial behavior to shed light on this trend,...

Charitable donations are often made through intermediaries who can fund themselves from these same donations. Donors who purchase charitable output through an intermediary incur a principal-agent problem with unobservable prices. We compare charitable giving in an experiment with and without...

A considerable and increasing share of foreign aid stems from private donations. Hence, individual donors can increase social welfare in developing countries by directing their funds to the most effective NGOs. Surprisingly few studies have analyzed whether private donors care about aid...

An increasing fraction of donations is channeled through donation intermediaries. These entities serve multiple purposes, one of which seems to be providing donors with greater certainty: that the donation reaches its intended goal, and that the donor may be sure to get a tax benefit. We...

Microfinance institutions, despite the presence of competition and informational asymmetries, typically offer a limited variety of contracts. Assuming price competition, we propose a simple theoretical explanation for this behavior and study its consequences in terms of strategic interaction and...

We test how donors respond to new information about a charity's effectiveness. Freedom from Hunger implemented a test of its direct marketing solicitations, varying letters by whether they include a discussion of their program's impact as measured by scientific research. The base script, used...

Early studies often found that offering economic incentives for undertaking prosocial and intrinsically motivated activities can crowd out motivation to perform these activities. More recent work highlights nuanced and important features related to whether crowding out (or substitution) is...