We report an experiment to study the effect of defaults on charitable giving. In three different treatments, participants face varying default levels of donation. In three other treatments that are paired with the first three, they receive the same defaults, but are informed that defaults are thought to have an effect on their donation decisions. The emotional state of all individuals is monitored throughout the sessions using Facereading software, and some participants are required to report their emotional state after the donation decision. We find that the default level has no effect on donations, and informing individuals of the possible impact of defaults also has no effect. The decision to donate is independent of prior emotional state, unless specific subgroups of participants are considered. Donors experience a negative change in the valence of their emotional state subsequent to donating, when valence is measured with Facereading software. This contrasts with the selfreport data, in which donating correlates with a more positive reported subsequent emotional state.JEL Classification: C91
We use data from experiments on finitely repeated dilemma games with fixed matching to investigate the effect of different types of information on cooperation. The data come from 71 studies using the voluntary contributions paradigm, covering 122 data points, and from 18 studies on decision-making in oligopoly, covering another 50 data points. We find similar effects in the two sets of experimental games. We find that transparency about what everyone in a group earns reduces contributions to the public good, as well as the degree of collusion in oligopoly markets. In contrast, transparency about choices tends to lead to an increase in contributions and collusion, although the size of this effect varies somewhat between the two settings. Our results are potentially useful for policy making, because they provide guidance on the type of information to target in order to stimulate or limit cooperation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10683-017-9517-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.