Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/273691 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers in Economics and Statistics No. 2022-18
Publisher: 
University of Innsbruck, Research Platform Empirical and Experimental Economics (eeecon), Innsbruck
Abstract: 
Unit donations are an alternative fundraising scheme in which potential donors choose how many units of a charitable good to fund, rather than just giving money. Based on evidence from an online experiment with 8,673 participants, we demonstrate that well-designed unit donation schemes can significantly boost giving above and beyond the standard money donation scheme. A decomposition of the underlying mechanisms shows patterns consistent with the conjecture that unit donations increase impact salience and leverage donors' cognitive biases by changing the metric of the donation space. The potential increase in donations likely outweighs the complications of designing a unit scheme, but requires expert handling of the choice of unit sizes.
Subjects: 
Aid effectiveness
charitable giving
framing
restricted choice
unit donation
JEL: 
D64
H4
L31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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