RUI: In-Kind Giving: Motives, Beliefs, and Behaviors

慈善机构会收到大量的非现金捐赠(实物捐赠)，尽管现金捐赠的效率会更高，因为非现金捐赠涉及大量的库存和存储成本，而且随着时间的推移可能会造成损坏和价值损失。人们对人们为什么捐款知之甚少，慈善机构接受实物捐赠。本研究项目将运用经济学理论和实验方法来研究捐赠者捐赠和慈善机构接受实物捐赠的动机、信念和行为。了解实物捐赠背后的动机和信念是很重要的，因为有相当大一部分捐赠是以实物捐赠的形式进行的。其次，理解人们为什么给予，以及慈善机构接受实物捐赠，将允许通过精心设计的干预措施来解决实物捐赠的低效问题。这项研究的结果将有助于提高慈善捐赠的效率，并通过为提高慈善捐赠效率的政策提供投入，增加国家的繁荣和福利。通过使慈善机构受益，研究成果进一步使捐赠者、慈善服务的接受者和当地社区受益。研究结果还将帮助美国成为提高慈善捐赠效率的全球领导者。该项目开发了一个研究慈善和捐赠者行为的理论框架。它提出了一个由两部分组成的研究，以调查慈善和捐赠者的动机、信仰和与实物礼物有关的行为：对慈善机构的电话调查，以及一套了解捐赠者的实验室人体实验。理论模型、慈善调查和实验室实验将确定与实物捐赠相关的因素，并促进对行为的微观基础和慷慨科学的理解。理论模型和实验包括一个具有多个投入的慈善机构，而过去的研究要么省略了一个慈善机构，要么只关注管理成本。慈善调查将深入了解慈善机构的生产职能，以及慈善机构如何评估和影响捐赠者的行为。实验室实验将测试实物赠送的能力是否会影响总体赠送，并测试实物礼物流行的四个关键解释：偏好、信息和信念、管理费用和浪费，以及不信任和道德回旋余地。这一结果将为研究偏好、信念和信息对慷慨的复杂交互影响提供新的见解。这些结果还将对理论上相关的现象产生直接影响，包括社会偏好和个人决策、志愿服务、有限的现金捐赠以及捐赠者对控制的需求。这项研究的结果还将有助于将美国确立为提高慈善捐赠效率的全球领导者。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Charities receive significant amounts of non-cash donations (in-kind donations) even though cash donations would be more efficient since non-cash donations involve significant inventory and storage cost, and possibly damages and loss in value over time. Relatively little is known about why people give, and charities accept in-kind donations. This research project will use economic theory and experimental methods to study the motives, beliefs, and behavior as to why donors give and charities accept in-kind donations. Understanding the motives and beliefs behind in-kind giving is important because a significant amount of giving occurs as in-kind donations. Second, understanding why people give, and charities accept in-kind giving will allow inefficiencies in in-kind giving to be addressed with well-designed interventions. The results of this research will contribute to improve efficiency in charitable giving and increase the prosperity and welfare of the country by providing inputs into policies to increase efficiency in charitable donations. By benefiting charities, the research results further benefit donors, recipients of charity services, and local communities. The results will also help establish the US as the global leader in improving the efficiency of charitable giving.This project develops a theoretical framework to study charity and donor behavior. It proposes a two-part study to investigate charity and donor motivation, beliefs, and behavior regarding in-kind gifts: a telephone survey of charities, and a suite of laboratory human subject experiments to learn about donors. The theoretical model, charity survey, and laboratory experiments will identify factors associated with in-kind giving and advance understanding of the micro-foundations of behavior and the science of generosity. The theoretical model and experiment include a charity with multiple inputs compared to past studies that either omit a charity or focus only on overhead cost. The charity survey will provide insights into charities’ production functions and how charities assess and influence donor behavior. The laboratory experiments will test whether the ability to give in kind affects overall giving as well as test four key explanations for the prevalence of in kind gifts: preferences, information, and beliefs, overhead and waste, and mistrust combined with moral wiggle room. The results will provide new insights into the complex interacting effects of preferences, beliefs, and information on generosity. The results will also have direct implications for theoretically related phenomena, including social preferences and individual decision making, volunteering, restricted cash gifts, and donor demand for control. The results of this research will also help establish the US as the global leader in improving the efficiency of charitable giving.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.