Inter-Charity Competition

Last registered on October 21, 2019
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Inter-Charity Competition
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004874
Initial registration date
October 18, 2019

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
October 21, 2019, 10:00 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Germany
Region
South of Germany

Primary Investigator

Name
Johannes Lohse
Affiliation
University of Birmingham
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Christiane Reif
PI Affiliation
: Frauenhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Carlo Gallier
PI Affiliation
ZEW
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Martin Kesternich
PI Affiliation
ZEW, University of Kassel
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Timo Goeschl
PI Affiliation
University of Heidelberg
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2017-03-01
End date
2017-03-30
Keywords
Other
Additional Keywords
Charitable Giving
JEL code(s)
C9, D7, H4
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We study spatially differentiated competition between charities by partnering with two foodbanks in two neighboring cities to conduct a field experiment with roughly 350 donation appeals. We induce spatial differentiation by varying the observability of charities’ location such that each donor faces a socially close ‘home’ and a distant ‘away’ charity. We find that spatially differentiated competition is characterized by sorting, crowding-in, and an absence of spill-overs: Donors sort themselves by distance; fundraising (through matching) for one charity raises checkbook giving to that charity, irrespective of distance; but checkbook giving to the unmatched charity is not affected. For lead donors, this implies that the social distance between donors and charities is of limited strategic important. For spatially differentiated charities, matching ‘home’ donations maximizes overall charitable income. Across both charities, however, the additional funds raised fail to cover the cost of the match, despite harnessing social identity for giving.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gallier, Carlo et al. 2019. "Inter-Charity Competition." AEA RCT Registry. October 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4874-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our intervention studies the effects of spatially differentiated competition on donation behavior. We observe donation flows to two partner charities who offer highly substitutable goods (food banks) and operate in the same region. Our first intervention makes the respective charity locations observable to potential donors. Our second intervention introduces a 1:1 match, offered either by the spatially close (home match) or by the spatially distant charity (away match).
Intervention Start Date
2017-03-01
Intervention End Date
2017-03-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Amount given to each charity (Checkbook giving)
Propensity to give to each charity (Extensive margin giving)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
From these primary outcomes we will estimate three effects of interest: a) the sorting effect, b) crowding effects and c)spillover effects

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Participants of the experiment complete an unrelated survey for a cash reward of Euro 15. They are then offered the possibility to donate any share of this reward to a selection of two charities. Unknown to the participants several treatment conditions are implemented on the donation screen. The treatment conditions emerge from crossing our two main interventions (i.e. observable charity location and 1:1 match offered by one charity)
T1: Charity location is not observable and there is no match
T2: Charity location is observable and there is no match
T3: Charity location is observable and there is a match offered by the home charity (i.e. the charity spatially closer to the donor)
T4: Charity location is observable and there is a match offered by the away charity (i.e. the charity spatially more distant to the donor)
T5: Charity location is not observable and there is a match offered by one randomly chosen charity
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Subjects are randomized to treatments via a computer program embedded in the experimental software
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
350 individual donors
Sample size: planned number of observations
350 individual donors
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
70-75 per treatment arm for treatments T1-T4. 50-55 for treatment T5. We hence slightly oversample participants to our main treatments of interest T1-T4 (21.25%), by slightly reducing the odds for T5 (15%).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
A comparison of means for the main outcome variable with 140 independent observations (70 per treatment) allows to detect mean differences of 0.47 with an assumed SD of 1 at conventional levels of statistical power and significance.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
March 30, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
March 30, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
347
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
347
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
T1: 76 T2: 73 T3: 78 T4: 67 T5: 53
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

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Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
We study spatially differentiated competition between charities by partnering with two foodbanks in two neighboring cities to conduct a field experiment with roughly 350 donation appeals. We induce spatial differentiation by varying the observability of charities’ location such that each donor faces a socially close ‘home’ and a distant ‘away’ charity. We find that spatially differentiated competition is characterized by sorting, crowding-in, and an absence of spill-overs: Donors sort themselves by distance; fundraising (through matching) for one charity raises checkbook giving to that charity, irrespective of distance; but checkbook giving to the unmatched charity is not affected. For lead donors, this implies that the social distance between donors and charities is of limited strategic important. For spatially differentiated charities, matching ‘home’ donations maximizes overall charitable income. Across both charities, however, the additional funds raised fail to cover the cost of the match, despite harnessing social identity for giving.
Citation
Gallier, Carlo, Timo Goeschl, Martin Kesternich, Johannes Lohse, Christiane Reif and Daniel Römer (2019), Inter-Charity Competition under Spatial Differentiation: Sorting, Crowding, and Spillovers, ZEW Discussion Paper No. 19-039
URL
http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp19039.pdf

Reports & Other Materials