Defaults and Donations: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Steffen Altmann; Armin Falk; Paul Heidhues; Rajshri Jayaraman; Marrit Teirlinck

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00774

Defaults and Donations: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Steffen Altmann¹; Armin Falk²; Paul Heidhues³; Rajshri Jayaraman⁴; Marrit Teirlinck⁵

¹ University of Copenhagen · ² Institute on Behavior and Inequality and University of Bonn · ³ Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics · ⁴ ESMT Berlin and University of Toronto · ⁵ ESMT Berlin and Humboldt University

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2019 open access

Abstract We study the effects of defaults on charitable giving in a large-scale field experiment on an online fundraising platform. We exogenously vary default options along two choice dimensions: the charitable donation decision and the “co-donation” decision regarding how much to contribute to supporting the platform. We document a strong effect of defaults on individual behavior but nevertheless find that aggregate donation levels are unaffected by defaults. In contrast, co-donations increase in the default amount. We complement our experimental results with a structural model that investigates whether personalizing defaults based on individuals' donation histories can increase donation revenues.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00774
Volume: 101 (5)
Pages: 808-826
Language: en
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