Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/80300 
Year of Publication: 
2005
Series/Report no.: 
CREDIT Research Paper No. 05/08
Publisher: 
The University of Nottingham, Centre for Research in Economic Development and International Trade (CREDIT), Nottingham
Abstract: 
Charitable giving has increasingly become ‘tough love’ - it has come to require recipients to undertake costly prior action. A common justification is that of greater efficiency: willingness to undertake costly actions signals greater productivity from transfers. However, there is a trade-off. Conditions impose a cost, since the activities required are by themselves welfare reducing for at least some of the beneficiaries. We present a simple model to demonstrate that, if the distribution of recipient types is unknown, recipient costs are indivisible and productivity unobservable, conditional charity, once instituted, may not yield information adequate to refute its efficiency claim. Consequently, donors who inefficiently provide conditional charity will not correct themselves. Donors who wrongly provide unconditional charity may however subsequently correct themselves. We thus offer grounds for scepticism regarding efficiency claims for conditional charity. Our analysis also provides reasons for encouraging donor multiplicity.
Subjects: 
Tough love
Conditional Charity
Unconditional Charity
Donor Conditionality
JEL: 
F35
F34
I38
O20
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.