Do fairness and race matter in generosity? Evidence from a nationally representative charity experiment

Abstract

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f oWe present a dictator game experiment where the recipients are local charities that serve the poor. Donors consist of approximately 1000 participants from a nationally representative sample. We manipulate the perceived worthiness and race of the charities' recipients with an audiovisual presentation. Respondents then decide how much to give to the charities and report their perceptions of recipient worthiness and racial composition. We have four main findings. First, treatments describing recipients as worthy significantly increase giving. Second, the treatment where respondents viewed photos mostly of the black recipients rather than white recipients had no significant effect on giving, even though it successfully manipulated perceptions of racial composition. Third, we find significant racial bias in perceptions of worthiness; the black picture treatment lowers perceived recipient worthiness significantly more among non-black respondents than among black respondents. Finally, we decompose the reduced-form effect of the black picture treatment on giving into two channels: one operating via perceptions of recipient worthiness and one running through perceptions of recipient racial composition. The worthiness perceptions channel is statistically significant, while the race perceptions channel is not. Thus, racially biased worthiness perceptions have a significant effect on giving but this effect is not strong enough to cause a significant reduced-form effect of the black picture treatment on giving.

The tie that divides: Cross‐national evidence of the primacy of partyism

“…Behavioural games are used extensively to assess group cooperation and conflict, measured in terms of willingness to donate money to individuals with varied group affiliations (Berg et al 1995;Fershtman & Gneezy 2001;Habyarimana et al 2007). The behavioural economics literature suggests that Player 1, contrary to the axioms of rationality, typically allocates non-trivial amounts (Johnson & Mislin 2011;Wilson & Eckel 2011) and that the allocation varies depending on attributes of Player 1 and the group affiliation of Player 2 (Fershtman & Gneezy 2001;Fong & Luttmer 2011). They are also told that the researchers will triple any amount given by Player 1 to Player 2.…”

Nordic Economic Policy Review

“…This is suggested and confirmed in, for example, Fong and Luttmer (2011), where it is showed, in a setting with charitable giving, that people perceive those who are more similar to themselves as more worthy of help.…”

“…Especially when those with lower income consist disproportionately of people of racial or ethnical minorities, the majority prefers less redistribution (Alesina and Giuliano, 2010). We may not like it, but it is widely observed that individuals are more generous towards others who are similar to themselves racially, ethnically and linguistically (see also Alesina et al, 1999;Luttmer, 2001;and Fong and Luttmer, 2011). The data in Table 3 come from Alesina and Glaeser (2004) and show evidence on racial, ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization across Europe and the US.…”

Charitable Dictators? Determinants of Giving to NGOs in Uganda

“…Community members wrote down their own charity more often than students (interpreted as possibly indicating stronger preferences for charities) and 40 per cent of participants allocated the full amount to the charity (US$ 100). Fong and Luttmer () find that perceived worthiness of the recipients does significantly increase giving to the charity. Small, Loewenstein and Slovic () summarize the evidence demonstrating that people tend to donate more to ‘identifiable victims’ (i.e.…”