(2025). The Impact of Timing and Type of Donation Decision on Charitable Giving Social Choice and Welfare 2025.
We study how the timing and the type of donation decisions affect charitable giving. In an online real-effort experiment with a subsistence income constraint, participants could donate to a charity either before or after they worked to generate income. We find no evidence that timing affects the propensity to donate or the amounts donated. However, if a donation is expressed as a share of future income rather than an absolute amount, more people donate and they donate larger amounts. Advance commitment does not appear to have a motivational effect on effort. Our findings suggest that requesting donations as a share of future income may enhance charitable giving.
