Decomposing desert and tangibility effects in a charitable giving experiment |
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Authors: | David Reinstein Gerhard Riener |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Economics, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, Essex, UK;(2) University of Jena, Jena, Germany |
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Abstract: | Several papers have documented that when subjects play with standard laboratory “endowments” they make less self-interested
choices than when they use money they have either earned through a laboratory task or brought from outside the lab. In the
context of a charitable giving experiment we decompose this into two common artifacts of the laboratory: the intangibility
of money (or experimental currency units) promised on a computer screen relative to cash in hand, and the distinct treatment
of random “windfall” gains relative to earned money. While both effects are found to be significant in non-parametric tests,
the former effect, which has been neglected in previous studies, has a stronger impact on total donations, while the latter
effect has a greater impact on the probability of donating. These results have clear implications for experimental design,
and also suggest that the availability of more abstract payment methods may increase other-regarding behavior in the field. |
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