How far can media undermine democratic institutions and how persuasive can it be in assuring public support for dictator policies? We study this question in the context of Germany before World War II, between 1929 and 1939. First, we estimate the impact of radio signal on voting for the Nazi...

While increasingly popular in many domains crowdfunding remains largely un-derresearched and little is known about the best way to encourage participation. In a field experiment we vary suggested amounts and test different wordings for a campaign to finance a club good - an institute's summer...

We provide the first field evidence for the role of pure self-image, independent of social image, in charitable giving. In an online fundraising campaign for a social youth project run on an opera ticket booking platform we document how individ-uals engage in self-deception to preserve their...

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 an online fundraising campaign run on an opera ticket booking plat-form. After establishing a baseline, a first change doubled the donation grid. A second change altered the navigation of the website rendering the act of declining to donate more salient. The contribution of our paper is...

Previous studies of charitable giving have focused on middle or higher income earners in Western countries, neglecting the poor. Despite this focus, the lowest income groups are often shown to contribute substantial shares of their income to charitable causes. In a large-scale natural field...

Some companies engage in mass fundraising — where thousands of recipients are asked to make small donations — in addition to their core business. Via a corporate social responsibility (CSR) channel this may increase sales. However, recent research uncovered significant “ask avoidance”...