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Registration

Field Before After
Last Published July 01, 2024 11:58 AM March 04, 2026 03:06 AM
Study Withdrawn No
Intervention Completion Date June 27, 2024
Data Collection Complete Yes
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) 759
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms 301 (effective altruism treatment), 302 (control), 156 (robustness treatment)
Public Data URL https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/k45wxv28j7/1.
Program Files Yes
Program Files URL https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/k45wxv28j7/1.
Data Collection Completion Date June 27, 2024
Is data available for public use? Yes
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Papers

Field Before After
Paper Abstract In a pre-registered randomised online experiment, we test the effect of an effective altruism information treatment on donations to non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Donor behaviour is measured through an incentivised discrete choice experimental approach. Despite power to pick up reasonably small effects, we find no effect of the treatment on donations to advocacy organisations, suggesting that the critique against effective altruism as ignoring institutional, systemic, and political issues meets with little empirical support. Some results even suggest that effective altruism may increase donor support for advocacy. In addition, effective altruism leads to increased support for organisations with an international focus, a result driven by respondents with less universalistic distributional preferences and less trust in NGOs. This suggests that effective altruism may reduce parochialism in donor behaviour.
Paper Citation Berge, J. W., Berge, L. I., Chiu, W. and Kolstad, I. (forthcoming), “Impacts of effective altruism on donor behaviour: A randomized discrete choice experiment”, Journal of Development Studies
Paper URL https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2025.2601583
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