, Volume 76, Issue 1, pp 47-67
First online:
An experimental investigation of intrinsic motivations for giving
- Mirco ToninAffiliated withEconomics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of SouthamptonCentral European UniversityIZA
- , Michael VlassopoulosAffiliated withEconomics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton Email author
Abstract
This paper presents results from a modified dictator experiment aimed at distinguishing and quantifying intrinsic motivations for giving. We employ an experimental design with three treatments that vary the recipient (experimenter, charity) and amount passed (fixed, varying). We find giving to the experimenter not to be significantly different from giving to a charity, when the amount the subject donates crowds out the amount donated by the experimenter such that the charity always receives a fixed amount. This result suggests that the latter treatment, first used by Crumpler and Grossman (J Public Econ 92(5–6):1011–1021, 2008), does not provide a clean test of warm glow motivation. We then propose a new method of detecting warm glow motivation based on the idea that in a random-lottery incentive (RLI) scheme, such as the one we employ, warm glow accumulates and this may lead to satiation, whereas purely altruistic motivation does not. We also provide bounds on the magnitudes of warm glow and pure altruism as motives that drive giving in our experiment.
Keywords
Dictator game Warm glow Pure altruism Charitable giving Random Lottery Incentive SchemeJEL Classification
C91 D03 D64-
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Supplementary material 1 (rtf 34 KB)
- Title
- An experimental investigation of intrinsic motivations for giving
- Journal
-
Theory and Decision
Volume 76, Issue 1 , pp 47-67
- Cover Date
- 2014-01
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11238-013-9360-9
- Print ISSN
- 0040-5833
- Online ISSN
- 1573-7187
- Publisher
- Springer US
- Additional Links
- Topics
- Keywords
-
- Dictator game
- Warm glow
- Pure altruism
- Charitable giving
- Random Lottery Incentive Scheme
- C91
- D03
- D64
- Industry Sectors
- Authors
-
-
Mirco Tonin
(1) (2) (3)
-
Michael Vlassopoulos
(1)
-
Mirco Tonin
- Author Affiliations
-
- 1. Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
- 2. Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
- 3. IZA, Bonn, Germany