Browsing by Author "Vesterlund, Lise"

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    Strategic Behavior and Learning in Repeated Voluntary-Contribution Experiments
    (2003) Muller, Laurent; Sefton, Martin; Steinberg, Richard; Vesterlund, Lise
    Voluntary contribution experiments systematically find that contributions decline over time. We use a two-stage voluntary contribution game to investigate whether this decrease is caused by learning or strategic behavior. Using a strategy method we find a robust pattern of declining contributions: contributions in stage two are 45% lower than in stage one. Repeating the game five times we find that experience generates a smaller decline in contributions: stage one contributions decrease by around 7% per game. Finally we find no significant differences between the strategy and direct response method, which suggest that our results help explain behavior in the latter.
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    Why Do People Give? Testing Pure and Impure Altruism
    (American Economic Association, 2017-11) Ottoni-Wilhelm, Mark; Vesterlund, Lise; Xie, Huan; Economics, School of Liberal Arts
    Researchers measure crowd-out around one level of charity output to identify whether giving is motivated by altruism and/or warm-glow. However, crowd-out depends on output, implying first that the power to reject pure altruism varies, and second that a single measurement of incomplete crowd-out can be rationalized by many different preferences. By instead measuring crowd-out at different output levels, we allow both for identification and for a novel and direct test of impure altruism. Using a new experimental design, we present the first empirical evidence that, consistent with impure altruism, crowd-out decreases with output.