Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/336012 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 12310
Publisher: 
Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research - CESifo GmbH, Munich
Abstract: 
This paper presents the first quantitative meta-analysis of the price elasticity of charitable giving under both rebate and matching schemes. We compile 151 elasticity estimates from 33 experimental studies and synthesize them using random-effects and multi-level models. Charitable giving is highly price-responsive: the pooled meta-analytic mean elasticity of total donations is -1.25, indicating that lowering the effective price of giving substantially increases charitable revenue. Although we observe considerable between-study heterogeneity and some evidence of publication bias, bias-adjusted estimates remain negative. Furthermore, elasticity is substantially more negative under matching (-1.98) than under rebate (-0.87), contradicting the theoretical prediction of equivalence but aligning with the original experimental findings in this literature. The rebate-matching difference is attenuated when moving from laboratory to field settings, although it persists.
Subjects: 
charitable giving
rebate
matching
experiment
meta-analysis
JEL: 
C90
D91
H20
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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