Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/90570 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers No. 111
Publisher: 
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Courant Research Centre - Poverty, Equity and Growth (CRC-PEG), Göttingen
Abstract: 
Charitable giving is one of the major obligations Islam and a strong Muslim norm endorses giving to the needy, but discourages public displays of giving. This norm is puzzling in light of previous evidence, suggesting that making donations public often increases giving. We use an experiment to assess the effects this moral prescription on actual giving levels in an anonymous and in a public setting. We conducted two field experiments with 534 and 186 subjects at Moroccan educational institutions. Subjects who participated in a paid study were given the option to donate from their payment to a local orphanage, under treatments that varied the publicity of the donation and the salience of Islamic values. In the salient Islamic treatment, anonymity of donations significantly increased donation incidence as well as average donations for religious subjects. This stands in stark contrast to most previous findings in the charitable giving literature.
Subjects: 
Charitable giving
Islam
Social pressure
Priming
Religion
Norms
Field experiment
JEL: 
H40
C93
D01
Z12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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