Four Essays on the Economics of Pro-Social Behaviors

Abstract

This dissertation is composed of four experimental studies on the economics of pro-social behaviors. The first essay studies a donation-soliciting strategy known as category reporting and analyzes the mechanism that allows this strategy to raise more funds than other donation plans. The second essay focus on the gender differences in their responses to the category reporting plan. I find that men are more sensitive to the public acknowledgement when they make donations. The third essay extends the literature of third-party intervention by introducing an option of the third-party compensation, in addition to the existing third-party punishment when social norms are violated. Compensation is proved to be a preferred intervention means than punishment. In the fourth essay, I study the conflicts of different forms of social preferences. The results suggest that individuals have a fixed budget of pro-social spending, and different forms of social preferences do not crowd out one another.