Economics Commons^™

Motives For (In)Effective Giving: Comparing Rural And Urban Groups In South Africa., Luvuyo Bulelani Magwaza

Master's Theses

Different cultures have their own set of norms and values that not only shape people’s motives but also influences their decision making. What may be viewed as logical and ethical in one culture, may be seen as illogical or unethical in another. One area that is consistently affected by cross-cultural differences in motives is charitable giving. Recently, there has been an increase in interest around effective altruism— a social movement and philosophy that argues, people should give to charities that do the most good. Prior research that has found that people do not give based on efficiency; instead, people give …

Choice Overload, Information Acquisition, And Gift Incentives In An Altruistic Context: Economic Experiments Exploring Decision Making In Charitable Giving, Jessica Adach White

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains three essays on economic experiments concerning altruistic motives. The first chapter, “Choice Overload and Charitable Giving: Can There Be Too Much of a Good Thing?” concentrates on the effects of list sizes of charitable options on an individual’s decision making. The second chapter, “Is No News Good News? Motivated Reasoning in Charitable Giving,” focuses on the impact of information acquisition on an individual’s altruistic contributions. Finally, the third chapter, “Thank You, but No Thank You: Gift Incentives in Charitable Giving,” investigates gift incentives and their influence on donating behavior.

In the first chapter, “Choice Overload and Charitable …

The Effects Of Public Policy On Charitable Giving, Arielle Sauer

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the effects of No Child Left Behind, The Affordable Care Act, and the Clean Power Plan has on charitable organizations geared towards education, healthcare and environmentalism. I find that public policy negatively impacts giving to education and environmental nonprofits and positively impacts giving to health nonprofits.

Giving On The Margin: The Power Of Donor Recognition, Jordan W. Richmond

Honors Projects

This study develops a controlled laboratory experiment to examine the effects of personal recognition on charitable giving. I find evidence that both the possibility of acquiring prestige and the desire to avoid shame motivate individuals to give in recognition situations. Furthermore, I show that the possibility of being recognized is more important than the distinguishing value of that recognition, suggesting that an offer of recognition has greater power to increase charitable contributions when a larger proportion of donors will be recognized.