We study how other-regarding behavior extends to environments with uncertain income and conditional commitments. Should fundraisers ask a banker to donate "if he earns a bonus" or wait and ask after the bonus is known? Standard EU theory predicts these are equivalent; loss-aversion and signaling...

Christmas is when people are expected to act selflessly for the well-being of others, but are people actually more altruistic at this time of the year? Responding to this question poses a challenge because of the confounding factors of charitable tax breaks, reciprocity motives, direct social...

We investigate the determinants of giving in a lab-in-the-field experiment with large stakes. Study participants in urban Mozambique play dictator games where their counterpart is the closest person to them outside their household. Dictators share more with counterparts when they have the option...

We investigate the determinants of giving in a lab-in-the-field experiment with large stakes. Study participants in urban Mozambique play dictator games where their counterpart is the closest person to them outside their household. Dictators share more with counterparts when they have the option...

We investigate the determinants of giving in a lab-in-the-field experiment with large stakes. Study participants in urban Mozambique play dictator games where their counterpart is the closest person to them outside their household. Dictators share more with counterparts when they have the option...

There has been little systematic study of the mechanisms typically used to raise money for charity. One of the most common is the simple raffle in which participants purchase chances to win a prize at a constant price. We conduct a field experiment randomly assigning participants to four raffle...

We conducted a field experiment with a charitable group to investigate whether giving the donor an option to write a personal message to the recipient influences giving behavior. Over 1,500 households were approached in a door-to-door campaign and randomized to either a control or a treatment in...

Do donors examine a single ask to donate in isolation or do they consider that other and future asks may come along? In the first year of our field experiment, we vary whether or not potential donors are informed that the ask will be repeated in the following year. This information has dramatic...

We study a form of threshold matching in fundraising where donations above a certain threshold are topped up with a fixed amount. We show theoretically that threshold matching can induce crowding in if appropriately personalized. In a field experiment, we explore how thresholds should be chosen...