Seminar with Lise Vesterlund, University of Pittsburgh

Lisa Versterlund, University of Pittsburgh, will present "Motives for Charitable Giving," by Lise Vesterlund, Mark Wilhelm and Huan Xie. Abstract: The literature on charitable giving distinguishes between the pure versus impure altruism model. The pure altruism model argues that the sole motive for giving is a concern for securing the charity’s output, whereas the impure altruism model allows for the possibility that a donor also gets a private benefit or warm glow from being the one who secures the contribution to the charity. While the past literature has focused on testing the pure altruism model, we design an experiment that enables an examination of both models, and thus improves our ability to identify the role played by the warm glow of giving. We test the motives for giving in an environment that closely mirrors those of the theoretical models, specifically each participant in the experiment singlehandedly determines the dollar amount to be transferred to a recipient of the charity. Our results show that participants behave as predicted by the impure altruism model, however the relative weight attached to the warm-glow of giving is very small.

What
When	Apr 10, 2008 from 03:30 pm to 05:00 pm
Where	214 Business Building
Contact Name	Gary Bolton
Contact Email	geb3@psu.edu
Contact Phone	814-865-0611
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