Economics of charitable giving - Understanding the motivation of donation behaviour

By Nguyen Ngoc Nu (VNP 19)

Supervisor: Dr. Pham Khanh Nam

Abstract

This paper studies the individual determinants of charitable giving including in time, donation in gift, and money donation. The research analyzes survey data in Ho Chi Minh City on charity giving in the last 12 months with 500 individuals. We design a questionnaire to collect information on the donation behavior, individual characteristics, and perceptual and attitudinal factors. A multivariate probit model is applied to analyze the three related behavior of in-kind, time and money donation. We found that richer, religious and female respondents are more likely to give. Perceptual and attitudinal factors are not significant. Particularly we found that altruism, warm glow, prestige and reciprocity, and government do not have a statistical significant impact on all kinds of donation. The only exception is family influence, implying that the giving of the current generation would result in good giving habit of the future generations.