Increasing Charitable Giving: What Can We Learn from Economics?*

There is growing policy interest in charitable giving in the UK. As part of its Big Society agenda, the current government is keen to encourage a higher level of donations, highlighting new technologies, new social norms and tax incentives as potential mechanisms for raising giving. In the 2012 Budget, however, the Chancellor also proposed limiting tax relief on donations to £50,000, sparking an intense discussion about the effectiveness and desirability of tax incentives for major donors. This paper brings together recent evidence relevant to the ongoing policy debates.     

Giving gifts to groups: How altruism depends on the number of recipients

When a single gift goes to a group of recipients, how does giving depend on the size of the group? This question is important for understanding charitable giving and fund-raising, public goods provision, family altruism, and more. If we think of the gift as giving up a dollar to create a social surplus, then we want to know how the number of recipients of that surplus affects its value to the giver. In other words, how congestible is altruism? This paper builds a theoretical framework for this question and begins to answer it with a controlled experiment. The finding is that for most subjects altruism is congestible. For the average subject, a gift that results in one person receiving x is equivalent to one in which n people receive x / n^0.68 each.     

Predicting consumer behavior with two emotion appraisal dimensions: Emotion valence and agency in gift giving

Decades of emotion research have demonstrated the unique influences of many specific emotions on consumer behaviors. These countless numbers of emotion effects can make it difficult to understand the role of emotions in consumer behavior. The current research introduces a parsimonious framework that can predict the effects of emotions on the consumer behavior of gift giving with just two appraisal dimensions: valence and agency. A series of studies examining gift giving reveals that positive emotions exert positive effects on gift giving, independent of their agency. In contrast, agency does predict the effects of negative emotions on gift giving. Negative self-caused emotions increase gift giving, whereas negative other-caused emotions decrease gift giving. These findings seem to hold for inactive and active emotions, and for uncertain and certain emotions. Together, these findings make a unique theoretical and empirical contribution to the understanding of emotions in gift giving. Moreover, it provides a pragmatic framework for both academics and practitioners.     

Exploring the role of charitable ethnocentrism and donation motives in international giving: Empirical evidence from Germany

The purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the drivers of international giving intention by examining the joint effect of ethnocentrism and donation motives. More specifically, this study analyzes the direct effect of charitable ethnocentrism on the intention to give to international causes. Additionally, the study investigates the moderating effect of charitable ethnocentrism on the relationships between donation motives and the intention to donate to international causes. This study's findings indicate that ethnocentric donors are less willing to donate to international causes. Moreover, the study results show that the effects of egoistic and tax-saving donation motives vary across different levels of charitable ethnocentrism: charitable ethnocentrism enhances the effect of the egoism motive on international donation intention, whereas the effect of the tax-saving motive on international giving intention is mitigated. Based on the empirical findings, this study discusses implications for theory and practice along with study limitations and avenues for future research.     

国家环境给付义务

与环境权利对应的是国家环境义务,环境权益的公众性、环境保护的复杂性要求国家须有所作为,而传统的给付义务无法对环境保护问题作出全面适当的回应。无疑,从一种更广义的给付义务出发,阐述国家环境给付义务的理论基础和现实必要性,具体论述国家环境给付义务的类型、范围以及国家违反环境给付义务的责任形式问题,构建新时期国家环境给付义务体系,在当前有重要意义。     

The Management of Collecting Boxes:

Little is known about the income generated by static box collection schemes where boxes are located in retail outlets by collectors who place and empty them. The aim of this paper is to assess the amount donated to a charity collecting box over a period of time using an equivalent annual return statistic and to determine the relative merits of different types of retail location. The analysis shows that not all the retail types have the same box yield. Those with the highest yields are: Take-away, Cafe, Bar, Newsagent, Supermarket, Ironmonger, Baker, Butcher and Chemist.     

The Four ‘S's’ of experience gift giving behaviour

The purpose of this paper is to explore the behaviour associated with the phenomenon of the giving and receiving of gifts that are experiences. Gift giving theory has evolved around physical goods, to the detriment of building an explicit knowledge of intangible gifts—the hospitality, leisure and tourism experiences. Fifty-two cases of experience gifts emerged from depth interviews with donors or recipients of different ages, occupations and gender. A storyline of the Four S's of experience gift giving—surprise, suspense, sacrifice and sharing—offered distinctive insights into experience gift giving behaviour.     

Etzioni versus Becker: Do Moral Sentiments differ from Ordinary Tastes?

There are two competing definitions of economics. One, exemplified in Etzioni's work, stipulates that economics is the study of one kind of ends, the pursuit of material benefits (welfare). This definition entails that material ends are incommensurable with moral ends. The other, expressed in Becker's work, registers that economics is the analysis of one aspect of all ends, optimization. This definition implies that material and moral ends are commensurable. The paper finds that each definition has its own shortcomings. The paper outlines an alternative view, illustrated by the difference between gifts and grants, which promises to supplant the shortcomings of each definition.     

Business marketing and the ethics of gift giving

This paper focuses on the common though ethically problematic practice of suppliers providing gifts and other benefits to buyers in a business-to-business context. It is argued that contrary to the claim that the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable practices is blurred when there is a focus on developing mutually beneficial, long-term relationships between suppliers and their business customers, there is a straightforward decision making procedure that can be applied. Central to this decision making procedure is the concept of a conflict of interest. While all organisations have very good reasons to address the issue of gifts and benefits, in a relationship marketing context there is even more reason to do so.     

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.