Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/123391 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
WWZ Working Paper No. 05/08
Publisher: 
University of Basel, Center of Business and Economics (WWZ), Basel
Abstract: 
There is a longstanding concern that material incentives might undermine prosocial motivation, leading to a decrease in blood donations rather than an increase. This paper provides an empirical test of how material incentives affect blood donations in a large-scale eld experiment spanning three months and involving more than 10,000 previous donors. We examine two types of incentive: a lottery ticket and a free cholesterol test. Lottery tickets signi cantly increase donations, in particular among less motivated donors. The cholesterol test leads to no discernable impact on usable blood donations. If anything, it creates a small negative selection effect in terms of donations that must be discarded.
Subjects: 
prosocial behavior
blood donations
material incentives
eld experiment
JEL: 
C93
D64
H41
I18
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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