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Shadow of a Doubt: Moral Excuse in Charitable Giving

Author

Listed:
  • Palma, Marco A.
  • Xu, Zhicheng Phil
Abstract
Charity corruption scandals cause sharp declines in donations. When deciding about charitable contributions, donors are influenced by the actual share that ultimately goes to the intended recipients; however, they are also impacted by the potential veiled cost that may come from legitimate administration and advertisement costs or in some cases from unethical expenditures or corruption. Therefore, donors are confronted with a tradeoff between helping people in need and the possibility of being cheated. Individuals may justify not giving by using a self-serving biased belief that the fundraisers are corrupt. In a laboratory experiment, we find evidence that participants are more likely to exploit the shadow of fundraising cost to bias their belief and contribute less when the incentive for selfishness is greater. Further, the charitable contribution significantly increases when the moral excuse is removed by excluding the possibility of fundraisers’ manipulation of the costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Palma, Marco A. & Xu, Zhicheng Phil, 2019. "Shadow of a Doubt: Moral Excuse in Charitable Giving," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 6(2), pages 133–146-1, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jnlrbe:105.00000102
    DOI: 10.1561/105.00000102
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Barron, Kai & Stüber, Robert & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2019. "Motivated motive selection in the lying-dictator game," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2019-303, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. Christine L. Exley & Judd B. Kessler, 2019. "Motivated Errors," NBER Working Papers 26595, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Charity; corruption; self-serving bias; social preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship

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