Arbeitspapier

Blood donations and incentives: Evidence from a field experiment

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.

Language
Englisch

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

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

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

DOI
doi:10.5451/unibas-ep73000
Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Götte, Lorenz
  • Stutzer, Alois
  • University of Basel, Center of Business and Economics (WWZ)

Time of origin

  • 2019

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