Charity & Gift Exchange

Charity & Gift Exchange: Cultural Effects

Saima Naeem & Asad Zaman: Charity & Gift Exchange: Cultural Effects

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations

April 2016, Volume 27, Issue 2, pp 900-919

First published ONLINE: 1 Oct 2015

Our goal was to replicate an elegant demonstration of the Gift Exchange Mechanism (GEM) by Falk (2007) in a door-to-door charity raising campaign. To our surprise, we were unable to replicate these results in Pakistan; instead of increasing with gift size, donations decreased. Also, we encountered two phenomena not previously reported in the literature: gift refusals and hospitality. Because we did not anticipate these effects, our experiment did not provide significant information regarding their causes. Indirect evidence suggests cultural and religious norms for charity may be responsible for the observed differences. Further experimentation is required to provide better evidence for our hypotheses in this regard.

Key Words: Gift Exchange, Charitable Giving, Culture

JEL-Classification: C93, D63

References

From: VOLUNTAS (VOLU) <em@editorialmanager.com>

> Subject: Decision on your manuscript #VOLU-D-14-00192R1

> To: "Saima Naeem" <saima_pide@yahoo.com>

> Date: Friday, September 4, 2015, 4:56 PM

> Dear Dr. Naeem:

>

> I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript, "Charity

> and Gift Exchange: Cultural Effects" has been accepted for

> publication in VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary

> and Nonprofit Organizations.

>

> Please remember to quote the manuscript number,

> VOLU-D-14-00192R1, whenever inquiring about your

> manuscript.

>

> Thank you.

>

> Congratulations and best regards,

> Bernard Enjolras, PhD

> Editor-in-Chief

> VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit

> Organizations