2 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS I.INTRODUCTION In the United States,approximately%findividuals donate money each year.There is at least one capital campaign to raise $25 million or more under way in virtually every major population center in North America.Smaller capital campaigns are even r-to-door dri e and mail ng in popularity.Despite the ubiquity fund-raising,we still have an imperfect understanding of the motivations for giving and the welfare implications for the giver (see,e.g.,Andreoni 2006). In this article,we consider two broad classes of motiva- tions.First.individ may enjoy For example,hey car about a specific warm glow of giving. Second,individuals may give,despite not liking to give to the charity,because the solicitor effectively placed them under social pressure to give.Such givers would rather avoid the personal interaction or.The two motivations ha are implications.The altruism(or warm glow)mode (Becker 1974;Andreoni 1989,1990)posits that giving is mostly supply-driven,and that it is utility-maximizing for the giver to give.Under this model,donations unambiguously enhance the giver's utility as well as societal welfare.The social pressure model (Ake lof and K n2000)p osits that giv ing is most demand-driven,and that giving may be utility-reducing for the giver. We test for these two types of motivations in the context of in-person,unsolicited donation requests.Building on a theoretical model w e design a field xperim ment that allows us totest whether giving is welfare enha welfare-reduci ng for the giver We complement the reduced-form experimental evidence with structural estimates of the model parameters.The structural es- timation allows us to decompose the share of giving that is due to altruism versus social pressure and to quantitatively evaluate the welfare effects r the giver.In this s way,the empiric sand theory are intertwined in a manner that is rare in this literature.To our knowledge,this article is the first in the behavioral literature to provide structural estimates of welfare implications of a field prment.Moreover,while the fund-raising set-up is sp it sho ses a genera toward be and provides etter understanding the underpinnings for giving more generally.2 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS I. INTRODUCTION IntheUnitedStates, approximately90% ofindividuals donate money each year. There is at least one capital campaign to raise $25 millionormoreunderwayinvirtuallyeverymajorpopulation center in North America. Smaller capital campaigns are even more numerous, with phoneathons, door-to-door drives, and mail solicitations increasing in popularity. Despite the ubiquity of fund-raising, we still have an imperfect understanding of the motivations for giving and the welfare implications for the giver (see, e.g., Andreoni 2006). In this article, we consider two broad classes of motiva￾tions. First, individuals may enjoy giving. For example, they care about a specific worthy cause or like the warm glow of giving. Second, individuals may give, despite not liking to give to the charity, because the solicitor effectively placed them under social pressure to give. Such givers would rather avoid the personal interaction with the solicitor. The two motivations have very different welfareimplications. Thealtruism(orwarmglow) model (Becker 1974; Andreoni 1989, 1990) posits that giving is mostly supply-driven, and that it is utility-maximizing for the giver to give. Under this model, donations unambiguously enhance the giver’s utility as well as societal welfare. The social pressure model (Akerlof and Kranton 2000) posits that giving is mostly demand-driven, and that giving may be utility-reducing for the giver. We test for these two types of motivations in the context of in-person, unsoliciteddonationrequests. Buildingona theoretical model, we design a fieldexperiment that allows us totest whether giving is welfare-enhancing or welfare-reducing for the giver. We complement the reduced-form experimental evidence with structural estimates of the model parameters. The structural es￾timation allows us to decompose the share of giving that is due to altruism versus social pressure andtoquantitatively evaluate the welfare effects for the giver. In this way, the empirics and theory are intertwined in a manner that is rare in this literature. To our knowledge, this article is the first in the behavioral literature to provide structural estimates of welfare implications of a field experiment. Moreover, while the fund-raising set-up is specific, it showcases a general methodology and provides a first step toward better understanding the underpinnings for giving more generally. by guest on September 20, 2012 http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from