{"id":599,"date":"2008-02-13T20:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-13T20:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2008\/02\/why-people-give-to-charity-well-sort-of.html"},"modified":"2008-02-13T20:09:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-13T20:09:00","slug":"why-people-give-to-charity-well-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2008\/02\/why-people-give-to-charity-well-sort-of.html","title":{"rendered":"Why people give to charity (well, sort of…)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\"Blogging<\/a><\/div>\n

It\u2019s an interesting fact that, in countries with more intense religious belief, charitable donations are higher but wealth inequality is also higher. This tends to suggest that religious people are not intrinsically more generous, but that they are more likely to prefer charity as a tool for income redistribution, rather than collective agreement (e.g. by state mediated redistribution).<\/p>\n

So the reasons people have for giving to charity are interesting, from a humanistic perspective. A recent study on this, by University of Texas Professor Rachel Croson<\/a>, has just won the 2007 Best Article Award from the journal that published it, Economic Inquiry<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The study (preprint here<\/a>) used a lab model of charity in which participants are given a sum of money which they can either keep or contribute to a common pool. Contributing to the common pool benefits everyone equally. For example, in the first experiment participants were given 25 tokens which they could either keep (earning them 2\u00a2) or donate (earning each of the four participants 1\u00a2). So the total value of each token is doubled by donating, although the individual loses out.
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Using this game, Croson tested three theories of charitable giving:<\/span><\/p>\n