Giving in a large economy: price vs. non-price effects in a field experiment

We conduct a large-scale field experiment with 2,440 subjects in which we exogenously vary the price of contributing to the closest empirical counterpart of an infinitely large public good, climate change mitigation. We find that the price effect is robust and negative, but quantitatively weak, with...

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Hauptverfasser: Diederich, Johannes (VerfasserIn) , Goeschl, Timo (VerfasserIn)
Dokumenttyp: Book/Monograph Arbeitspapier
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Heidelberg Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Heidelberg June 14, 2011
Schriftenreihe:Discussion paper series / University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics no. 514
In: Discussion paper series (no. 514)

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Online-Zugang:Resolving-System, kostenfrei, Volltext: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-opus-121017
Resolving-System, Volltext: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/127328
Verlag, Volltext: http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/12101
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Verfasserangaben:Johannes Diederich; Timo Goeschl
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:We conduct a large-scale field experiment with 2,440 subjects in which we exogenously vary the price of contributing to the closest empirical counterpart of an infinitely large public good, climate change mitigation. We find that the price effect is robust and negative, but quantitatively weak, with a price elasticity of -0.25. Socioeconomic variables such as education, situational variables such as meteorological conditions around the time of the experiment, and attitudinal variables that can be linked to guilt and moral responsibility dominate the price effect. The latter also explain better than price arbitrage the decision of subjects to declare to be field price censored. The results provide an experimental window on the absolute and relative role of price effects on public goods contributions in a large economy and inform current attempts to build a coherent theory of charitable giving.
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