Build it and they will come: Volunteer opportunities and volunteering

Formal volunteering refers to an individual's unpaid contribution of time to the activities of a charitable or non-profit organization. While the physical presence of these organizations is usually required for citizens who want to volunteer, neighbourhoods vary with respect to the amount of volunteering opportunities available. We are the first to geo-code information on the location of registered charities and the location of individuals, using full six-digit postal codes, to examine how the physical proximity of charities affects the decision to volunteer. We carefully address the possibility that proximity to charities might be endogenous: organizations and volunteers may respond to similar unobservable factors when deciding where to locate. Our results imply that access does matter for the decision to volunteer: one more charity within a 1 km buffer around an individual's residence increases the predicted probability of volunteering by 0.8%. The impact of an additional charity on the likelihood of volunteering decreases with distance from the individual's residence and is more pronounced for urban dwellers, providing further evidence that the location of charities matters when it comes to nudging individuals to volunteer.     

Volunteering and life or financial shocks: does income and wealth matter?

Volunteering is a dominant social force that signals a healthy state. However, although the literature on volunteering is extensive, knowledge on how life’s discontinuities (life and financial shocks) affect volunteering is limited because most studies work with static (cross-sectional) data. To reduce this shortcoming, we use longitudinal data from Australia (HILDA) that track the same individuals over time to assess how individuals from different income and wealth groups respond to life and financial shocks with respect to volunteering. Although both income and wealth can act as buffers against life shocks by providing stability and reducing vulnerability – which decreases the need to actually change behaviour patterns – we observe more heterogeneity than expected and also stickiness at the lowest income levels. Response delays in post-shock volunteering also suggest that volunteering habits may be driven and influenced by strong commitment and motivation that are not shattered by life or financial shocks. In fact, the amount of time spent volunteering tends to increase after negative income shocks and decrease after positive income shocks.     

Reprint of: A common-pool resource experiment with postgraduate subjects from 41 countries

This study reports results from a new series of experiments that examine the robustness of face-to-face communication as a cooperation-facilitating institution in common-pool resource settings. Results are reported from nine experiment sessions, initially designed for pedagogical purposes. The sessions were conducted between 1998 and 2007 as part of a series of summer institutes on institutional analysis and environmental change. Subjects were graduate students and professionals from diverse disciplines, representing 41 countries of residence. The participants in this study stand in sharp contrast to most previous studies, which used undergraduates who self-select into experiments by volunteering to participate. Results from these experiments substantiate earlier findings that non-binding communication can serve as an effective mechanism for solving social dilemma problems, with subjects achieving near socially efficient outcomes.     

China's Regional Trade and Domestic Market Integrations

The global economic crisis in 2007 forced China to move from export‐led growth to promoting domestic demand. The move is significant, but the success of this new growth strategy depends critically on the level of domestic market integrations. In this paper, we use the methodology proposed by Anderson and Wincoop to examine China's domestic market integrations. We find evidence of border effects at both national and regional levels with significant regional differences, but they are smaller than some earlier studies suggest. Income growth, lower transportation costs, and higher intra‐industry trade all have positive effects on China's regional trade. Among the factors affecting regional trade, a better business environment has the largest positive impact on lifting China's domestic trade between regions, especially in intermediate goods, suggesting that improving business environment should be the priority of government at all levels in China.     

Multitasking

We examine how multitasking affects performance. We also examine whether individuals optimally choose their degree of multitasking or whether they perform better under an externally imposed schedule. Subjects in our experiment perform two different tasks according to one of three treatments: one where they perform the tasks sequentially, one where they are forced to multitask, and one where they can freely organize their work. Subjects who are forced to multitask perform significantly worse than those forced to work sequentially. Surprisingly, subjects who can freely organize their own schedule also perform significantly worse. These results suggest that scheduling is a significant determinant of productivity. Finally, our results do not support the stereotype that women are better at multitasking. Women suffer as much as men when forced to multitask and are actually less inclined to multitask when being free to choose.     

Why volunteer? Evidence on the role of altruism,image, and incentives

We examine motivations for prosocial behavior using new data on volunteer firefighters that contain a dictator game based measure of altruism, surveyed measures of other behavioral factors, and call records that provide an objective measure of time spent volunteering. Controlling for a variety of other explanations, we find that the decision to volunteer is positively correlated with altruism as well as with concern for social reputation or “image.” Moreover, by utilizing variation in the presence and level of small stipends paid to the firefighters, we find that the positive effect of monetary incentives declines with image concerns, supporting a prediction that extrinsic incentives can crowd out image motivation for prosocial behavior.     

The Great Recession and charitable giving

We examine the impact of the Great Recession on charitable giving. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we estimate a variety of specifications and find sharp declines in overall donative behaviour that is not accounted for by shocks to income or wealth. These results suggest that overall attitudes towards giving changed over this time period.     

Revealed value of volunteering: A volunteer centre network

This article deals with the revealed value of volunteering. The revealed value approach is one way to determine the value of non‐market goods or services. Most studies focused on the value of volunteering have built their research on the presumption that there is no way to reveal the value of volunteering, and therefore proxies must be used. This research uses a plausibility probe case study to explore and identify revealed information about the value of volunteering. The research was conducted using data over a seven‐year period (2012–18) from ADRA, a large volunteer centre network in the Czech Republic that has 14 volunteer centres coordinating more than 2,500 volunteers in about 50 cities. I used the data about all the public funding of all the centres in this network between 2012 and 2018 in order to calculate the revealed value of volunteering from the perspective of various governmental institutions. I calculated the total value of volunteering, including financial grants, donations, and the value of volunteer hours. Interestingly, all three values were found within or slightly around the interval estimate of the value of volunteering.     

VOLUNTARY WORK AND WAGES

The effects of voluntary work on earnings have recently been studied for some developed countries such as Canada, France and Austria. This paper extends this line of research to Italy, using data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU‐SILC) dataset. A double methodological approach is used in order to control for unobserved heterogeneity: Heckman and IV methods are employed to account for unobserved worker heterogeneity and endogeneity bias. Empirical results show that, when the unobserved heterogeneity is taken into account, a wage premium of 2.7 percent emerges, quite small if compared to previous investigations on Canada and Austria. The investigation into the channels of influence of volunteering on wages gives support to the hypotheses that volunteering enables the access to fruitful informal networks, avoids the human capital deterioration and provides a signal for intrinsically motivated individuals.     

Volunteers and Pseudo-Volunteers: The Effect of Recruitment Method in Dictator Experiments

We report the results of experiments that test for behavioral differences between volunteer subjects recruited in the usual way and pseudo-volunteer subjects in experiments conducted during class time. In a series of dictator games, we find that psuedo-volunteers are more generous on average than their volunteer counterparts, and that non-monetary factors such as religious or altruistic preferences have a greater effect on the giving behavior of pseudo-volunteers.     

AN EXAMINATION OF VOLUNTEER MOTIVATION IN CREDIT UNIONS: INFORMING VOLUNTEER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

ABSTRACT: Volunteer recruitment and retention is a problem that most credit unions experience. Research suggests that knowledge of volunteer motivation can inform volunteer management strategies. This paper uses a survey approach to determine whether current volunteers in credit unions in Northern Ireland are more motivated by the actual act of volunteering, by the output from the volunteering activity (including altruism) or because the volunteering activity increases their human capital value. Altruistic reasons are found to be the most influential, with the act of volunteering also scoring highly. This knowledge should inform volunteer recruitment programmes and internal appraisal processes as management can reinforce messages that provide positive feedback to volunteers on the social benefits being achieved by the credit union. This will further motivate current volunteers, ensuring retention. When motivation was analyzed by volunteer characteristics we found that older volunteers, retired volunteers and volunteers who are less educated are more motivated in their role. There was little evidence that individuals volunteer to improve their human capital worth.     

An experimental test of the crowding out hypothesis

We report the results of laboratory experiments that examine whether third-party contributions crowd out private giving to charity. Subjects play a single dictator game with a charity as the recipient. The subject chooses his preferred charity from a list. There are four treatment combinations: two initial allocations and two frames. Initial allocations are either US$18 for the subject and US$2 for the charity, or US$15 and US$5, respectively, and the subject is then given the opportunity to allocate additional funds if desired. The decision frame is also varied to affect subjects' perceptions of the task. In one frame, subjects are simply informed of the initial allocations between themselves and their chosen charity. In the other, subjects are told that their US$20 allocation has been taxed, and the amount allocated to their chosen charity. The structure of payoffs is identical in both frames. In the first frame, we see a level of crowding out that is close to zero, far less than other experimental studies; in the second frame, we observe nearly 100% crowding out.     

Altruism in individual and joint-giving decisions: What's gender got to do with it?

Abstract

This paper uses dictator experiments to examine gender differences in altruistic behavior in the United States when decisions are made individually and jointly. In anonymous individual giving to charity, women give substantially more than men, and in paired settings, mixed-sex groups give the most while all male pairs give the least. Evidence supports social information and negotiation effects as participants change giving toward that of their partners. Social image effects are found only in mixed-sex groups, indicating a gender-based component to the value of the social signal sent. Although men and women appear to have similar influence, the positive social image effect pushes giving in mixed-sex pairs above the sum of the members' individual gifts because the less altruistic partners (usually men) adjust their giving upward more than the more altruistic partners (usually women) reduce giving. Therefore, increasing women's participation in traditionally male spheres of decision making may result in more altruistic economic behavior.     

Volunteer Labour Supply: the role of workers' motivations

Abstract In this paper we study the determinants of volunteering. We depart from previous literature that considers only economic incentives and investigate the role that extrinsic and intrinsic motivations play in shaping the supply of voluntary labour. We build on previous theoretical research and derive a framework for interpreting results from our econometric analysis. We consider a sample of Italian workers of which we can observe proxies of motivations and volunteering choices in three different sectors: social services, political activism and union activism. We make due allowance for the endogeneity of motivations and show that both types of motivations have an effect on volunteering. Consistently with theoretical models, we find extrinsic motivations to lower voluntary labour supply, whereas the opposite holds for intrinsic motivations .     

The impacts of religion,political ideology,and social capital on religious and secular giving: evidence from the 2006 Social Capital Community Survey

Using a double hurdle model and data from the 2006 Social Capital Community Survey (SCCS2006) we examine religious and secular giving, focusing on the impacts of religion, political ideology and social capital. Our main results indicate that greater participation in religious activities positively impacts religious and secular giving, the intensity of religious belief increases religious giving at the expense of secular giving, religious giving by very conservative individuals is higher than for other ideological groups, and measures of social capital are very important in raising the level and likelihood of philanthropic giving.     

Gender and generosity: does degree of anonymity or group gender composition matter?

Employing a two-by-two factorial design that manipulates whether dictator groups are single or mixed-sex and whether procedures are single or double-blind, we examine gender effects in a standard dictator game. No gender effects were found in any of the experimental treatments for the mean or median levels of giving, or for the propensity to give nothing. However, females chose to give away half of their endowments with greater frequency than males in the pooled single-sex treatments.     

THE LEVEL OF WORLD INEQUALITY: HOW MUCH CAN ONE SAY?

This paper constructs estimates of income and consumption inequality for the world (124 countries), using various measures of inequality. It then goes on to examine the possible effects of various sources of error in the estimates, and attempts to set rough limits to the size of such effects. Among the sources of error examined are purchasing power parities used for currency conversion, systematic errors in estimates of per capita incomes, differences in age structure, government tax and expenditure policy, and lifetime income effects. The paper concludes that, although the level of uncertainty in the estimates is too great to permit conclusions about, for instance, trends over time, it is clear that the level of world inequality is extreme, and that it is primarily due to differences in average incomes across countries rather than to intra-country inequality.     

Formal volunteering and self-perceived health. Causal evidence from the UK-SILC

The paper assesses the causal relationship between formal volunteering and individual health. The econometric analysis employs data provided by the Income and Living Conditions Survey for the United Kingdom carried out by the European Union’s Statistics (UK-SILC) in 2006. Based on 2SLS, treatment effect and recursive bivariate probit models, and religious participation as instrument variable, and controlling for social and cultural capital, our results show a positive effect of formal volunteering on self-perceived health.     

Profit maximisation vs. agency: an analysis of charitable giving by UK firms

The charitable giving of a large sample of publicly quoted UKfirms is analysed within a model that explores the profit maximisationand managerial utility enhancement motives for giving. The empiricalmethod draws a distinction between the decision to participatein giving and the determination of the amount of corporate contributions.Firm size and advertising intensity are found to be positivelyassociated with the probability of participation in giving.Stricter corporate governance and the rate of directors' remunerationare negatively related to the probability of participation.Among givers, the rate of giving is related positively to R&Dintensity, the rate of directors' remuneration, and corporateprofitability and negatively to firm indebtedness.     

New hope for the voluntary contributions mechanism: The effects of context

This research examines how three common contextual factors can affect contributions in the linear voluntary contributions mechanism (VCM). Using business student subjects and a low marginal per capita rate of return, the results show that contributions in the last of ten rounds range from 18% for the traditional VCM with no initial cheap talk, no voting, and a status quo of not giving to 94% in a VCM with initial cheap talk, voting, and a status quo of giving. The results demonstrate that context can make the VCM produce sustained efficiencies similar to incentive-compatible public-good mechanisms.