公共品和慈善捐献的相对收入激励:真实项目的实验研究

The Effects of Relative Income on Donations to Public Goods and Charity:An Experimental Study with Real-World Projects

在公益捐献中,公共品和慈善属性的差异往往被忽视,本文研究相对收入引发的参照点效应对这两类捐献的不同影响。我们在实验中引入真实的环保公共品和扶贫慈善项目,探讨高低收入者在相对收入相同或不同的环境中对两类项目的捐献决策,并用实验室模拟进行稳健性检验。理论分析表明,相对收入使得个体在公共品中更多表现为条件合作,在慈善捐赠中主要表现为不平等厌恶。实验结果显示,在公共品中,给定绝对收入水平,相对收入降低使得个体参照他人而增加自身贡献。在慈善捐赠中,捐赠水平主要受绝对收入影响,而相对收入通过信念机制发挥作用。本文加深了对相对收入激励下不同捐献行为的理解,为第三次分配、公益事业和区域规划等政策设计提供了借鉴。

The differences between the nature of public goods and that of charity are often overlooked.This study examines how the reference point effect induced by relative income gives rise to different behaviour in these two types of donation.In the experiment,we use environmental protection as a public goods setting and poverty alleviation as a charity setting in order to explore the donation decisions of low-and high-income individuals in groups with different relative income.For the robustness test,we conduct corresponding simulation experiments in the laboratory.Theoretical analysis indicates that relative income affects contribution to public goods through conditional cooperation,and affects donation to charity through inequality aversion.The experimental results show that,in the public goods setting,given the level of absolute income,the decrease in the relative income makes individuals increase their contribution through the reference effect of others.In the charity setting,the amount of individual donations is affected by absolute income mainly and is affected by relative income through the belief about other members’donations.This study provides a better understanding of the behaviour of donations in public goods and charity under the environment of relative income,and this has notable implications for policies related to tertiary distribution,fund raising,and community planning.