In an experimental setup we investigate the effect of defaults on charitable giving. In the treatment group, subjects can either specify a charity of their choice, or select one from a default list of five well-known charities; in the control group we do not provide the list. In a sample of 869 subjects we find that offering a list of default charities doubles both the fraction of donors and the aggregate amount of donations. These findings point to the importance of psychological factors like a effective reactions in donation decisions. Download the paper in PDF format
, Petra Thiemann and Christian Thöni
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