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The use of directed giving-allowing donors to target their gifts to specific organizations or functions-is pervasive in fundraising, yet little is known about its effectiveness. We conduct a field experiment at a public university in which prospective donors are presented with either an opportunity to donate to the unrestricted Annual Fund, or an opportunity of donating to the Annual Fund and directing some or all of their donation towards the academic college from which they graduated. While there is no effect on the probability of giving, donations are significantly larger when there is the option of directing. However, the value of the option does not come directly from use, as very few donors choose to direct their gift. * We are grateful to the Association of Former Students at Texas A&M University for their cooperation, particularly Chanee Carlson, Larry Cooper, and Marty Holmes. Wei Zhan provided excellent research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation through grant number SES-1338680. † The views presented here are solely those of the authors and do not represent those of Marqeta, Inc.

As we contemplate the state of academic research in the agricultural economics community, there are two facts that are difficult to overlook. First, over roughly the first half of the twentieth century, scholars working on agricultural issues were the toast of the academy, setting forth an empirical research agenda that served to influence social and natural scientists profoundly. The seminal contributions made in these early years continue to shape important academic and policy debates. A second fact remains that this dominance has waned in the past several decades, with major empirical advances now more likely in sister fields, such as labor economics or industrial organization.One piece of ocular evidence showing this decline is shown in figure 1, which reports the share of papers devoted to agricultural topics in four top economic journals over the period 1911-2000, quinquennially. 1 In the earliest years more than 10% of papers in these four top journals were devoted to agriculture,

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