On Reminder Effects, Drop-Outs and Dominance: Evidence from an Online Experiment on Charitable Giving

We present the results of an experiment that (a) shows the usefulness of screening out drop-outs and (b) tests whether different methods of payment and reminder intervals affect charitable giving. Following a lab session, participants could make online donations to charity for a total duration of th...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Link(s) zu Dokument(en):IHS Publikation
Hauptverfasser: Sonntag, Axel, Zizzo, Daniel John
Format: Article in Academic Journal PeerReviewed
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Public Library of Science (PLoS); PubMed Central 2015
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:We present the results of an experiment that (a) shows the usefulness of screening out drop-outs and (b) tests whether different methods of payment and reminder intervals affect charitable giving. Following a lab session, participants could make online donations to charity for a total duration of three months. Our procedure justifying the exclusion of drop-outs consists in requiring participants to collect payments in person flexibly and as known in advance and as highlighted to them later. Our interpretation is that participants who failed to collect their positive payments under these circumstances are likely not to satisfy dominance. If we restrict the sample to subjects who did not drop out, but not otherwise, reminders significantly increase the overall amount of charitable giving. We also find that weekly reminders are no more effective than monthly reminders in increasing charitable giving, and that, in our three months duration experiment, standing orders do not increase giving relative to one-off donations. (Author's Abstract)