An experimental investigation of intrinsic motivations for giving

This paper presents results from a modified dictator experiment aimed at distinguishing and quantifying the two intrinsic motivations for giving: warm glow and pure altruism. In particular, we implemented a within-subject experimental design with three treatments: (i) one, where the recipient is the experimenters, which measures altruistic feelings towards the experimenters (T1), (ii) the Crumpler and Grossman (2008) design in which the recipient is a charity, and the dictator's donation crowds out one-for-one a donation by the experimenters, which aims at measuring warm glow giving (T2), (iii) a third one, with a charity recipient and no crowding out, which elicits both types of altruism (T3). We use T1 to assess to what extent altruistic feelings towards the experimenters are a potential confound for measuring warm glow in T2. We find giving in T1 not to be significantly different from T2, suggesting that the Crumpler and Grossman test is an upper bound estimate of warm glow giving. We provide a lower bound estimate based on the behavior of subjects whose estimate of warm glow giving in T2 is not confounded, that is, those who do not display altruistic feelings towards the experimenters in T1. We use these two estimates to decompose giving in T3 into warm glow and pure altruism and find them to be almost equally important. We also propose a new method of detecting warm glow motivation based on the idea that in a random-lottery incentive (RLI) scheme, such as the one employed here, warm glow benefits accumulate and may lead to satiation, whereas purely altruistic motivation does not

The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel? Patriotism and Tax Compliance

We study the effects of patriotism on tax compliance. In particular, we assume that individuals feel a (random draw of) warm glow from honestly paying their taxes. A higher expected warm glow reduces the government's optimal audit probability and yields higher tax compliance. Second, individuals with higher warm glow are less likely to evade taxes. This prediction is confirmed empirically by a multivariate analysis on the individual level while controlling for several other potentially confounding factors. The findings survive a variety of robustness checks, including an instrumental variables estimation to tackle the possible endogeneity of patriotism. On the aggregate level, we provide evidence for a negative correlation between average patriotic warm glow and the size of the shadow economy across several countries.patriotism, tax evasion, warm glow

Spacecraft ram glow and surface temperature

Space shuttle glow intensity measurements show large differences when the data from different missions are compared. In particular, on the 41-G mission the space shuttle ram glow was observed to display an unusually low intensity. Subsequent investigation of this measurement and earlier measurements suggest that there was a significant difference in temperature of the glow producing ram surfaces. The highly insulating properties coupled with the high emissivity of the shuttle tile results in surfaces that cool quickly when exposed to deep space on the night side of the orbit. The increased glow intensity is consistent with the hypothesis that the glow is emitted from excited NO2. The excited NO2 is likely formed through three body recombination (OI + NO + M = NO2*) where ramming of OI interacts with weakly surface bound NO. The NO is formed from atmospheric OI and NI which is scavenged by the spacecraft moving through the atmosphere. It is postulated that the colder surfaces retain a thicker layer of NO thereby increasing the probability of the reaction. It has been found from the glow intensity/temperature data that the bond energy of the surface bound precursor, leading to the chemical recombination producing the glow, is approximately 0.14 eV. A thermal analysis of material samples of STS-8 was made and the postulated temperature change of individual material samples prior to the time of glow measurements above respective samples are consistent with the thermal effect on glow found for the orbiter surface

On the Crowding-Out Effects of Tax-Financed Charitable Contributions by the Government

An important question in the literature on charitable contributions is the extent to which tax-financed contributions by the government crowd out private contributions. This paper examines a simple model of charitable contributions in which there exist both warm-glow and public good motives for giving, but where the warm-glow motive is competitive in the sense that individuals evaluate their own contribution relative to that of their peers. It is shown that the competitive element of the warm-glow motive may exacerbate or attenuate the crowding-out effect, depending upon certain preference and income parameters. However, as the warm-glow motive for giving becomes purely competitive, crowding out is exacerbated and is almost dollar-for-dollar.Charitable contributions, warm-glow, crowding out, public goods

STS atmospheric luminosities

During the STS-8 space shuttle mission special photographic and TV operations were carried out to record the properties of the spacecraft induced luminosities. One of these luminous phenomena is the quiescent vehicle glow which was photographed during the STS-8 mission with an image intensified photographic camera, with and without an objective grating. During the latter part of the mission the altitude of the shuttle was relatively low (120 n.m. = 222 km) and unprecedentedly high intensity of the glow was observed. The crew reported that the glow was easily visible to the naked eye. The proper orientation of the shuttle with respect to the velocity vector and the objective grating permitted the exposure of good objective spectrum of the glow in the visible region. From the results it is clear that the spectrum appears to be a continuum as observed by the image intensifier objective grating camera. Qualitative examination of the data shows that there is very tail little glow ion the wavelength range of 4300 to about 5000 angstroms. Above 5000 angstroms the glow becomes stronger towards the red and then it falls off towards higher wavelength and of the spectrum presumably because of the responsivity of the device

A model for explaining some features of shuttle glow

A solid state model is proposed which hopefully removes some of the objections to excited atoms being sources for light emanating from surfaces. Glow features are discussed in terms of excited oxygen atoms impinged on the surface, although other species could be treated similarly. Band formation, excited lifetime shortening and glow color are discussed in terms of this model. The model's inability to explain glow emanating above surfaces indicates a necessity for other mechanisms to satisfy this requirements. Several ways of testing the model are described