Content area
Abstract
This dissertation studies social incentives in pro-social behavior and its various implications, including but not limited to disclosure policies, fundraising strategies and geographic polarization. Chapter 1 presents evidence of social incentives in the context of campaign contributions. We conducted a field experiment in which letters with individualized information were sent to 91,998 campaign contributors in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. We find that exogenously making an individual's contributions more visible to her neighbors significantly increased (decreased) her subsequent contributions if the majority of her neighbors supported her same (opposite) party. This constitutes evidence that contributions are used to signal political affiliation. In another treatment arm, we randomized the information observed by recipients about neighbors' contribution behavior. We find that an individual's contribution is affected by the individual's perceptions about the contribution behavior of others.
Chapter 2 studies the contribution of conformity effects to geographic polarization, also in the context of political participation. Conformity effects are defined as the higher tendency of individuals to participate if surrounded by other like-minded individuals. As identification strategy we employ an event-study analysis of residential mobility with a panel of nearly 100,000 contributors to presidential campaigns over the period 2008-2013. We find evidence of significant conformity effects: living in a ZIP-code with a 10% higher share of supporters of the same party increases an individual's probability of making contributions by about 1.1%. A counter-factual analysis suggests that geographic polarization in contributions was 18.5% higher than it would have been in the absence of conformity effects.
Chapter 3 provides evidence on the causal effect of religious participation on charitable giving and social services. As identification strategy, we exploit an event-study of the Catholic-clergy sexual abuse scandals in the United States. We find that the scandals caused a long-lasting decline in religious participation, charitable giving and the provision of social services. However, the scandals did not affect religious beliefs or other forms of pro-social behavior. This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that religious participation causes higher charitable giving, more likely through social mechanisms (e.g., solicitation, social pressure) than through religious beliefs (e.g., belief in god).
