16 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS an in-person interview,(3)a training session,and (4)partici pation as a solicitor and/or surveyor in the door-to-door cam paign.Details about the recruitment process are in Online Appendix B. The field experiment took place on Saturdays and Sundays between April 2008 and October 2008(both charity and survey treatments)and then again between April 2009 and Novembe (survey treatmens。。are wealthy tow 2009(sur Each solicitor is assigned a list of typically 25 households per hour on a street,for a daily workload of either 4 hours (10 am-noon and 1-3 pm)or 6 hours (10 am-noon and 1-5 pm).Every hour,the solicitor moves to a different street in the n eighbo od and typ cally enters differ nt tr t.So licitors do not kn heth involves they can presumably learn that information from observing flyers on doors.Solicitors are trained to either do charity treatments or survey treatments(with a small number trained to do both). A solicitor assigned to La Rabida on a given day will only do treatments for La Rabida,and similarly for ECU or survey. Treatments.In the treatments without flyer,solicitors knock on the door or ring the bell and,if they reach a person,proceed through the script (see Online Appendix C).They inform the household about the charity (La Rabida or ECU),ask if they are willing to make a donation,and if they receive a gift leave a re ceipt.In the survey treatm ent,the solicitor inquires whether th household member is willing to respond to survey quest ons about charitable giving.The solicitor informs the household member about the duration of the survey(5 or 10 minutes)and about the payment for completing the survey,if any($10,$5,or none). In the Alver treatments.the solicitor ript is identical,but nt solicitor ves yer on n the doorknob day before the s licitation. The profess onally prepared flyer indicates the time of the upcoming fund-raising (or survey)visit within a one-hour time interval.Figure II provides examples of two flyers used for the fund-raising treatment and two flyers used for the 2008 survey treatments.the opt-out treatments,the 9.Burr Ridge Count ide,Flo Kenilworth,Lemont 10.For a small number of observations,the flyer does not indicate the exact Results for e resu
16 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS an in-person interview, (3) a training session, and (4) participation as a solicitor and/or surveyor in the door-to-door campaign. Details about the recruitment process are in Online Appendix B. The field experiment took place on Saturdays and Sundays between April 2008 and October 2008 (both charity and survey treatments) and then again between April 2009 and November 2009 (survey treatments only). The locations are wealthy towns around Chicago.9 Each solicitor is assigned a list of typically 25 households per hour on a street, for a daily workload of either 4 hours (10 am–noon and 1–3 pm) or 6 hours (10 am–noon and 1–5 pm). Every hour, the solicitor moves to a different street in the neighborhood and typically enters a different treatment. Solicitors do not know whether a treatment involves a flyer, though they can presumably learn that information from observing flyers on doors. Solicitors are trained to either do charity treatments or survey treatments (with a small number trained to do both). A solicitor assigned to La Rabida on a given day will only do treatments for La Rabida, and similarly for ECU or survey. Treatments. In the treatments without flyer, solicitors knock on the door or ring the bell and, if they reach a person, proceed through the script (see Online Appendix C). They inform the household about the charity (La Rabida or ECU), ask if they are willing to make a donation, and if they receive a gift leave a receipt. In the survey treatment, the solicitor inquires whether the householdmember is willing torespondtosurvey questions about charitable giving. The solicitor informs the household member about the duration of the survey (5 or 10 minutes) and about the payment for completing the survey, if any ($10, $5, or none). In the flyer treatments, the solicitor’s script is identical, but in addition a different solicitor leaves a flyer on the doorknob on the day before the solicitation. The professionally prepared flyer indicates the time of the upcoming fund-raising (or survey) visit within a one-hour time interval. Figure II provides examples of twoflyers used for the fund-raising treatment and twoflyers used for the 2008 survey treatments.10 In the opt-out treatments, the 9. Burr Ridge, Countryside, Flossmoor, Kenilworth, Lemont, Libertyville, Oak Brook, Oak Forest, Oak Park, Orland Park, Park Ridge, Rolling Meadows, Roselle, Schaumburg, Skoke-Evanston, and Willowbrook. 10. For a small number of observations, the flyer does not indicate the exact time of the visit, only that there will be a visit in the next two weeks. Results for this subgrouparequalitativelysimilartotheresults fortheflyerwiththeone-hour by guest on September 20, 2012 http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from
TESTING FOR ALTRUISM AND SOCIAL PRESSURE 人.RAID LA RABIDA Children'sHospita undraisers will vis thi Fur ☐2 Researchers will omorrow e ween Youbpaid FIGURE II Flyer Samples ag你雄6h网 are both for a 10-minute survey with flyer,the left one without payment,the right one for a $10 payment
TESTING FOR ALTRUISM AND SOCIAL PRESSURE 17 FIGURE II Flyer Samples Twoexamples offlyers forthe2008 fund-raisingtreatments (toprow)andflyers for the 2008 survey treatments (bottom row). The top-left flyer is for the opt-out treatment, while the top-right flyer is for a flyer treatment. The bottom-row flyers are both for a 10-minute survey with flyer, the left one without payment, the right one for a $10 payment. by guest on September 20, 2012 http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from
18 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS Fundraising Treatments Survey Flyer 50 $0 10 Baseline Flyer Opt-out 55 s50 55 s10 FIGURE III Experimental Treatments(Top)2008,(Bottom)2009 (h of the treat riments in 2008 two charities for which the funds were raised. door.The charity treatments are summarized in the top part of Figure III. The survey treatments are aimed at estimating the elasticity of the presence at home and of the response rate toincentives.In Section V,we use these elasticities to estimate the social pressure
18 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS FIGURE III Experimental Treatments (Top) 2008, (Bottom) 2009 Summary of the treatments run in the door-to-door field experiments in 2008 (charity and survey) and run in 2009. La Rabida and ECU are the names of the two charities for which the funds were raised. flyer has a box “Check this box if you donot want tobe disturbed.” If the solicitors find the box checked, they do not knock on the door. The charity treatments are summarized in the top part of Figure III. The survey treatments are aimed at estimating the elasticity of the presence at home and of the response rate to incentives. In Section V, we use these elasticities toestimate the social pressure interval of visit. We therefore present the results combining these treatments. Excluding the observations with the two-week window does not change any of the results. by guest on September 20, 2012 http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from
TeSTING FORALTRUISM AND SOCIAL PRESSURE 0 and altruism parameters.The survey questions are mostly about patterns of charitable giving in 2008 and about voter participation in 2009.1 Figure III summarizes the survey treatments run in 2008(top)and 2009(bottom). Sample and Randomization.We reached a total of 8,906 households in the charity treatments,2,018 households in the 2008 survey treatments,and 10,594 households in the 2009 survey t ents.Fron this initial sar w exclude 1,391 observations in which the households displayed a no-solicitor sign (in which case the solicitor did not contact the household) or the solicitor was not able to contact the household for other reasons (including,for example,a lack of access to the front door r a dog blocking the entr e)We also ex day observat citors with sul stan tial incon in the recorde data.The final sample includ tencie s 7,668 house holds in the charity treatments,1,865 households in the 2008 survey treatments,and 10,035 households in the 2009 survey treatments. The charity field expe ment took place in 2008 in thre wa es. he ms wave (April to June 1 we solicited for both charities (with equal weights)and all three treatments (approximate weights of 40%for no-flyer,35%flyer,25%opt- out).In the second wave (July 13 to August 23),we solicited only for La Rabida and ran only no-flyer and flyer treatments(with ual weights).In the third wave(September 6 to October 18)we both cha rities(the ECU charity is over weight 75%)and all treatments(approximate weights of 25%for no-flyer,50%flyer,25%opt-out).The script of the randomization and the flyer design is the same throughout.Within each of these waves.the randomization of the treatments takes place for each solicitor-hour and is at the street level within a town. IV.REDUCED-FORM ESTIMATES we report the differences across the treatments in the share of households answering the door,the empirical counterpart of survey trea of flyers and hence we pool them in the analysis. ence of fyers on the door or on the
TESTING FOR ALTRUISM AND SOCIAL PRESSURE 19 and altruism parameters. The survey questions are mostly about patterns of charitablegivingin2008 andabout voterparticipation in 2009.11 Figure III summarizes the survey treatments run in 2008 (top) and 2009 (bottom). Sample and Randomization. We reached a total of 8,906 households in the charity treatments, 2,018 households in the 2008 survey treatments, and 10,594 households in the 2009 survey treatments. From this initial sample, we exclude 1,391 observations in which the households displayed a no-solicitor sign (in which case the solicitor did not contact the household) or the solicitor was not able to contact the household for other reasons (including, for example, a lack of access to the front door or a dog blocking the entrance). We also exclude 559 solicitorday observations for 5 solicitors with substantial inconsistencies in the recorded data.12 The final sample includes 7,668 households in the charity treatments, 1,865 households in the 2008 survey treatments, and 10,035 households in the 2009 survey treatments. The charity field experiment took place in 2008 in three waves. In the first wave (April 27 to June 1), we solicited for both charities (with equal weights) and all three treatments (approximate weights of 40% for no-flyer, 35% flyer, 25% optout). In the second wave (July 13 to August 23), we solicited only for La Rabida and ran only no-flyer and flyer treatments (with equal weights). In the third wave (September 6 to October 18) we solicited for both charities (the ECU charity is over-sampled with weight 75%) and all treatments (approximate weights of 25% for no-flyer, 50% flyer, 25% opt-out). The script of the randomization and the flyer design is the same throughout. Within each of these waves, the randomization of the treatments takes place for each solicitor-hour and is at the street level within a town. IV. REDUCED-FORM ESTIMATES We report the differences across the treatments in the share of households answering the door, the empirical counterpart of 11. In the 2009 survey treatments, about half of the flyers specify that the survey will be about voter participation. The results are similar for the two types of flyers and hence we pool them in the analysis. 12. These five solicitors indicate the presence of flyers on the door or on the floor also for households in the no-flyer treatment. by guest on September 20, 2012 http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from