These instruments are the "auction" the right to use your name to be shown on a plate that is mounted on a new building, the right to a membership status in a donation to a charity (for example, the Royal Opera House in London different membership levels, ranging from Silver Patron to Grand Tier Patron), the announcement of large donations before the money collection (seeding), supplementary grants (matching) with another donor agrees to a certain percentage of individual donations to supplement ( so, the British government in a complementary arrangement through tax rebates).
The Internet offers new opportunities for funds recruiters: they can provide information about the donors of the collection. The provision of such information, social norms in force or supporters simply to make their choices with more knowledge of the facts to make (2).
Until recently this was a widespread and to be important tools yet to make a thorough examination. A new generation of researchers, however, starts horizons. Economists are currently known as field experiments, where people like you and me real everyday decisions, in some cases even without knowing that they are participating in an experiment.
Steffen Huck and Imran Rasul have a field experiment conducted in the Bayerische Staatsoper (3). The experiment has some fascinating results on the effectiveness of different strategies for fundraising. In this experiment were more than 22,000 people who had ever bought tickets for the opera, a letter in which they were asked to make a donation in support of operational projects for children in disadvantaged areas. The subjects were randomly approached to six different treatments subject. For each approach, use was made of one of the various marketing techniques that are used in the fundraising business. For example, a treatment from the statement that an anonymous donor had already donated 60,000 euro (seeding), while others got the message that an anonymous donor was out of pocket for every donation to make the same amount. Another approach was the statement that the anonymous donor for each donation of 20 euros in the pot would be independent of the amount of donations.
Of the more than 20,000 people who received a letter with a request to give money, slightly less than 1,000 decided to donate. Donors gave an average of about 100 euros, while there was significant differences between the treatments. For example, seeding (the statement that an anonymous donor had donated 60,000 euros) a very effective tool. Compared with the control treatment with an average donation of 74.30 euros, the average donation by seeding to 132 euros.
Matching (supplement donations) seems a less effective tool to: This method leads to a reduction in donations! Compared to seeding, the average donation in addition to 50% of the donation to 101 euros and in addition to 100% to 92.30 euros. The conclusion is that more money collecting funds recruiters using seeding with a complementary strategy.
On a deeper level, recent field trials give us information about some of the most fundamental assumptions of the economy. Economics is about choices, choices about what we eat, with whom we marry, we are investing in the shares, etc.
The core of the economy is formed by some basic assumptions about how people make their choices. The main assumption is by far the axiom of revealed preference (revealed preference) said. Imagine illustrating this axiom imagine that you have to choose between different quantities of apples and pears and you have a limited budget. Suppose that you have chosen to combine x and that the preference given to the top combination x y. Then you have shown a preference for x over y. Now that we adjust your budget so you still can buy x and y. If your choice satisfies the axiom of revealed preference, you will with your new budget does not show preference for y over x.
Despite his (relative) simplicity are the opinions on this axiom hitherto divided. This may partly be due to the fact that economists until recently had only to rely on data initially collected for other purposes. In contrast to the science of controlled laboratory experiments can be carried out, social scientists have the difficult task of uncontrolled (by the scientist understood!) To understand human behavior.
The experiment of Huck and Rasul can also be used to determine whether donations to charities comply with (a version of) the axiom of revealed preference. Each potential donor must make a choice on how it distributes its budget on donations to the project and the consumption of other goods.
How can the axiom of revealed preference is assessed only if each person makes a choice? To overcome this problem, the authors made use of the fact that the individuals were randomly divided into groups that had a particular treatment. This principle was always a representative sample of the population of visitors to an operatic treatment of the subject. A test that the authors of the data could carry out a comparison of the percentage of donors in two different groups of at least a certain amount donated. If the budget of consumers in comparison with the other group goes beyond this point (that is to say that consumers "richer" because the amount bijlegt an anonymous donor, the price of donations in fact falls), then the axiom the preference shown that the percentage of donors that donate at least this amount, at least must be the same as in the other group. The design of the study made a total of twelve tests possible. Eleven of them are in line with the axiom of revealed preference.
So it is clear that the choices of people fairly well with one of the fundamental assumptions on which option is used by economists. The described experiments provide new research opportunities and give researchers the opportunity to fascinating controlled non-intrusive experiments to be carried out in the field of human behavior.
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