CeDEx Seminar -Stephen Knowles (University of Otago)

In search of competitive givers

The theoretical and experimental research on charitable giving typically separates donors into three main giving types: pure altruists, warm-glow givers and impure altruists. We postulate the potential presence of another type of giver who receives additional utility from giving more than others: the competitive giver. We design a lab experiment to explore the possible existence of such a type of giver and find that 13.3% can be classified as such, while there is another 8.9% who show behaviour that can be partially explained by an element of competitive giving.