Blood donations and incentives: Evidence from a field experiment

Arbeitspapier

There is a longstanding concern that material rewards might undermine pro-social motivations, thereby leading to a decrease in blood donations. This paper provides an empirical test of how material rewards affect blood donations in a three-month large-scale field experiment and a fifteen-month follow-up period, involving more than 10,000 previous donors. We examine the efficacy of a lottery ticket as a reward vis-à-vis a standard invitation, an appeal, and a free cholesterol test. The offer of a lottery ticket, on average, increases the probability to donate blood during the experiment by 5.6 percentage points over a baseline donation rate of 46 percent. We find that this effect is driven by less motivated donors. Moreover, no reduction in donations is observed after the experiment.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: WWZ Working Paper ; No. 2019/20

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Field Experiments ; Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers ; Public Goods ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
• Subject: blood donations ; field experiment ; material rewards ; motivation crowding effect ; pro-social behavior

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Götte, Lorenz ; Stutzer, Alois
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Basel, Center of Business and Economics (WWZ)
• (where): Basel
• (when): 2019

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.5451/unibas-ep73000
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/240406
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET