Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265797 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 15576
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We analyze the offering, asking, and granting of help or other benefits as a three-stage game with bilateral private information between a person in need of help and a potential help-giver. Asking entails the risk of rejection, which can be painful: since unawareness of the need can no longer be an excuse, a refusal reveals that the person in need, or the relationship, is not valued very much. We show that a failure to ask can occur even when most helpers would help if told about the need, and that even though a greater need makes help both more valuable and more likely to be granted, it can reduce the propensity to ask. When potential helpers concerned about the recipient's ask-shyness can make spontaneous offers, this can be a double-edged sword: offering reveals a more caring type and helps solve the failure-to-ask problem, but not offering reveals a not-socaring one, and this itself deters asking. This discouragement effect can also generate a trap where those in need hope for an offer while willing helpers hope for an ask, resulting in significant inefficiencies.
Subjects: 
helping
asking
rejection
respect
shyness
altruism
cooperation
prosocial
image
reputation
information aversion
JEL: 
D03
D23
D64
D82
D83
D91
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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