Labor, Luck, and Charitable Giving

Last registered on December 19, 2021

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Labor, Luck, and Charitable Giving

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0008679

Initial registration date

December 15, 2021

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

December 19, 2021, 12:29 PM EST

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

Locations

Country

United States of America

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Sandra Goff

Affiliation

Bates College

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2021-12-14

End date

2021-12-16

Keywords

Behavior

Additional Keywords

charitable giving

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This study, conducted as a class experiment as a part of EC325 - Experimental Economics at Skidmore College in the fall semester of 2021, investigates the effect that working for a bonus as opposed to simply receiving a bonus has on charitable giving. In addition, the study seeks to determine whether information about the two conditions and charity type affect charitable giving in the study.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Goff, Sandra. 2021. "Labor, Luck, and Charitable Giving." AEA RCT Registry. December 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8679-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Participants are randomized to receive either the work (slider-bar task) or luck (no task required) condition.
They are also randomized to receive either the information or the no information condition.
Finally, participants are randomized to receive one of two charities when presented with the donation ask - a charity that serves the homeless or a children's hospital.

Intervention Start Date

2021-12-14

Intervention End Date

2021-12-16

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Percent of bonus donated

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Participants recruited on Amazon Mechanical Turk engage in an economic experiment.

Experimental Design Details

This study is conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk with approximately 160 participants from across the United States. Participants are randomly assigned to a task condition (work or luck), information condition (information about randomization to task condition or no information), a charity condition (charity that serves homeless individuals or children's hospital).
First, participants engage in their work or luck task as assigned. Participants in the work condition are asked to complete 20 slider bar tasks over 10 pages. This task requires participants to place the slider at the center of the bar to continue to the next page. Participants are paid a bonus based upon the number of bars they complete (1 point per bar - each point earns them 0.10 for a possible total of $2.00). Participants in the luck condition are told that they have earned 20 points for agreeing to participate in the study.
After engaging in their task, participants are asked to report the effort they expended in completing the study and whether they feel they earned their bonus.
Next, participants in the information condition are told about the two different ways in which participants earned their bonus in the study. Participants in the no information condition continue on without receiving this information.
Next, participants are asked whether they would like to donate a portion of their bonus to the charity to which they have been randomly assigned.
Finally, participants are asked a set of demographic questions and two questions to determine what they think the study is about and how they made their donation decision.

Randomization Method

Qualtrics' randomization capabilities are used to assign participants to conditions.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

160 participants

Sample size: planned number of observations

160 observations (1 observation per participant)

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

approximately 80 in work/80 in luck
approximately 80 in information/80 in no information
approximately 80 in homeless charity/80 in children's hospital charity

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Using an a priori calculator for multiple regression analysis, a minimum sample size of 118 participants is necessary to find an effect size of 0.2 at α = 0.01 with a statistical power of 0.80 and approximately 9 predictors. We will recruit a sample size of 160 participants to ensure statistical power of at least 0.80 with exclusions.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB