Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment (doi:10.7910/DVN/27853)

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Part 2: Study Description
Part 3: Data Files Description
Part 4: Variable Description
Part 5: Other Study-Related Materials
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Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment

doi:10.7910/DVN/27853

Harvard Dataverse

2014-11-19

4

Karlan, Dean; List, John A., 2014, "Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/27853, Harvard Dataverse, V4, UNF:5:C63Hp69Cn88CkFCoOA0N/w== [fileUNF]

Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment

doi:10.7910/DVN/27853

Karlan, Dean (Yale University)

List, John A. (University of Chicago)

Harvard Dataverse

Innovations for Poverty Action

Research Transparency, Data Ethics, and Governance

2014-11-19

2014

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/27853

Social Sciences, Charitable giving, Matching grant, Fundraising

This paper presents the results of a large-scale natural field experiment testing changes in revenue per solicitation and response rates given different types and levels of matching grants/gifts conditional on charitable giving. This is in order to provide insight to research in fundraising models and measures of non-market valuation for cost-benefit analyses. Of a sample of 50,083 individuals who have given to the organization since 1991, randomized and assigned 67% into "match" treatment group and 33% into control group, of which the "match" treatment group was offered a matching grant conditional on their donation. The "match" group was divded evenly between various sizes of the matching ratio ($3:$1, $2:$1, and $1:$1), the maximum size of the matching gift across all donations ($25,000, $50,000, and $100,000), and the example donation amount suggested to the donor (the individual's highest previous contribution, 1.25 times their highest previous contribution, and 1.5 times their highest previous contribution). All individuals received a four page letter identical in all respects except two: (a) the treatment let ters included an additional paragraph inserted at the top of the second page that announced that a "concerned fellow member" will match their donation, and (b) the reply card included in bold type the details of the match. For the control group, the reply card match language was replaced with a large logo of the organization. Outcome measures were donation response rates (donated or did not donate) and dollars donated.

2005-08-2005-08

United States

Individuals

Donors who had donated to the non-profit organization since 1991

Revenue data and donor records

Non-profit organization

Random assignment of 50,083 donors to this nonprofit into a "match" treatment group and control group, of which the "match" treatment group was offered a matching grant conditional on their donation, which was divided evenly between price ratio of the match, the maximum size of the matching gift across all donations, and the example donation amount suggested to the donor.

Donation collection records

http://karlan.yale.edu/p/

<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0">CC0 1.0</a>

Karlan, D. and List, J., "Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment," 2007. American Economic Review, 97(5): 1774-1793.

10.1257/aer.97.5.1774

Karlan, D. and List, J., "Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment," 2007. American Economic Review, 97(5): 1774-1793.

• Number of cases: 50083

• No. of variables per record: 51

• Type of File: text/tab-separated-values

UNF:5:C63Hp69Cn88CkFCoOA0N/w==

Stata dataset

• treatment - Treatment
• control - Control
• ratio - Match ratio
• ratio2 - 2:1 match ratio
• ratio3 - 3:1 match ratio
• size - Match threshold
• size25 - $25,000 match threshold
• size50 - $50,000 match threshold
• size100 - $100,000 match threshold
• sizeno - Unstated match threshold
• ask - Suggested donation amount
• askd1 - Suggested donation was highest previous contribution
• askd2 - Suggested donation was 1.25 x highest previous contribution
• askd3 - Suggested donation was 1.50 x highest previous contribution
• ask1 - Highest previous contribution (for suggestion)
• ask2 - 1.25 x highest previous contribution (for suggestion)
• ask3 - 1.50 x highest previous contribution (for suggestion)
• amount - Dollars given
• gave - Gave anything
• amountchange - Change in amount given
• hpa - Highest previous contribution
• ltmedmra - Small prior donor: last gift was less than median $35
• freq - Number of prior donations
• years - Number of years since initial donation
• year5 - At least 5 years since initial donation
• mrm2 - Number of months since last donation
• dormant - Already donated in 2005
• female - Female
• couple - Couple
• state50one - State tag: 1 for one observation of each of 50 states; 0 otherwise
• nonlit - Nonlitigation
• cases - Court cases from state in 2004-5 in which organization was involved
• statecnt - Percent of sample from state
• stateresponse - Proportion of sample from the state who gave
• stateresponset - Proportion of treated sample from the state who gave
• stateresponsec - Proportion of control sample from the state who gave
• stateresponsetminc - stateresponset - stateresponsec
• perbush - State vote share for Bush
• close25 - State vote share for Bush between 47.5% and 52.5%
• red0 - Red state
• blue0 - Blue state
• redcty - Red county
• bluecty - Blue county
• pwhite - Proportion white within zip code
• pblack - Proportion black within zip code
• page18_39 - Proportion age 18-39 within zip code
• ave_hh_sz - Average household size within zip code
• median_hhincome - Median household income within zip code
• powner - Proportion house owner within zip code
• psch_atlstba - Proportion who finished college within zip code
• pop_propurban - Proportion of population urban within zip code

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ado files.zip

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Contains ado files needed to run code

application/zip

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AERtable6_merged.do

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Stata code for Table 6 (edits noted)

text/x-stata-syntax; charset=US-ASCII

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AERtables1-5_merged.do

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Stata code for Tables 1-5 (edits noted)

text/x-stata-syntax; charset=US-ASCII

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Karlan - Charitable Giving Dataverse files.zip

Text:

Contains all files needed for replication (data, code, ado files) in the proper folder structure, as well as Readme files

application/zip

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Readme - Karlan, Charitable Giving.docx

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Readme document that accompanies the data, code, and survey files. Contains information on what is included in each file, folder structure needed to run code, Stata version used in replication and user-written commands included in code.

application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document