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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10052.pdf Non-technical summaryThis paper examines how providing potential donors with information about the revenues of a charity affects charitable contributions. When individuals make a real-life donation decision, they usually do not have precise information about a charity's income streams. They usually do not know whether and how much their neighbors or other people in their social community donate to a certain charity and it is questionable whether they are aware of the exact amount of government subsidies to that charity. They rather have a belief about the charity's size in terms of entire revenues, i.e. whether it is small or large.With regard to the information about a charity's revenues, various theoretical approaches may be relevant which do not necessarily point in the same direction. Some models assume a positive relationship between past revenues and donations while others suggest a negative relationship. So far, experimental studies have examined either the effect of government contributions or the effect of other private donations on charitable contributions but not the net effect thereof.Given the empirical nature of the problem and the gap in the experimental literature, we conducted a framed field experiment where a non-student subject pool was asked to make a real donation decision. Half of the subjects could choose whether to give to a charity with relatively low annual revenues or to a charity with relatively high annual revenues.Abstracting from other effects, such as the charities' reputation, our results indicate a negative relation between a charity's entire revenues and private donations to that charity. Our study also provides insights why donors prefer the small organizations and, therefore, discriminates between different theoretical approaches, offering a valuable insight to fundraisers. For most people the lower administrative costs, the higher impact of the own donation, and the neediness of the charity organization are decisive for choosing the small organization. Das Wichtigste in Kürze Abstract:This paper studies the effect of information about a charity's size on individuals' donations to that charity. We conducted a framed field experiment with a non-student sample, in which subjects had the opportunity to donate for various charitable purposes. The results show that if subjects are to choose between large organizations with high annu...

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp08123.pdf Non-technical summary

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