Anonymous Giving as a Vice An Application of Image Motivation英文文献资料.docVIP

Theoretical Economics Letters, 2012, 2, 385-390 /10.4236/tel.2012.24071 Published Online October 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/tel) Anonymous Giving as a Vice: An Application of Image Motivation Masaoki Tamura Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Email: tamuramasaoki@ Received June 6, 2012; revised July 2, 2012; accepted August 1, 2012 ABSTRACT While some donors boast about their giving, others give anonymously. A novel feature of this paper is that anonymity is endogenously controlled by donors themselves, not exogenously controlled by fundraisers. Is anonymous giving really a virtue, as is generally recognised? Paradoxically, this paper proves that anonymity is a vice for fundraisers even if it is what donors desire. If many altruists (a good type) switch from known to anonymous giving, it relatively lowers the group reputation of known donors and enhances that of non-donors. These effects dilute the incentive for other indi- viduals to become known donors, if they have psychological “image motivation”. I suggest a practical method to con- trol the expected number of anonymous donors: fundraisers remove the “check boxes” from their web sites. Keywords: Giving; Anonymity; Altruism; Image; Fundraising 1. Introduction tence of anonymous donors negatively affects the hypo- critical behaviour of non-altruists and the total amount of donation. Many studies, including [1-3], show that if experimenters control the anonymity of examinees, the examinees change their prosocial behaviour. The more anonymity experimenters provide, the less altruistic the examinees become. A novel feature of this paper is that anonymity is endogenously determined by the donors themselves. While some donors boast about their giving, others give anonymously. Is anonymous giving worth the same as known giving to fundraisers? Is anonymous giving really a virtue, as is generally recognised? Paradoxica