Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/55574 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers No. 08-3
Publisher: 
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Boston, MA
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 field 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 significantly increase donations, in particular among less motivated donors. The cholesterol test leads to no discrnable impact on usable blood donations. If anything, it creates a small negative selection effect in terms of donations that must be discarded.
JEL: 
C93
D64
H41
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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