Volunteer hiring, organizational form and the provision of mission-oriented goods

Mission-oriented organizations, such as nonprofit organizations and NGOs, rely critically on volunteer recruitment to achieve their organizational goals. Besides serving as an outlet of altruistic motives, volunteering often acts as a stepping-stone for a paid position in the nonprofit sector. This paper provides an explanation for the fact that nonprofit employers are uniquely able to attract such volunteers with social concerns and career aspirations and for the related observation that nonprofits figure prominently in mission-related activities. Our theory is predicated on that - by committing to not distributing profits - nonprofit incorporation relaxes the incentive constraint that employers face when implicitly contracting with volunteers, without relying on ex ante differences in workers' preferences over the employer's identity or inherent asymmetries between nonprofit and for-profit providers. The not-for-profit commitment is shown to be effective only in activities where producers, who can choose to be for-profit or nonprofit, care about the level or quality of the service being provided. Thus, in the equilibrium of the model developed here nonprofit entry in sectors where missions play a defining role and the hiring of volunteers arise endogenously due to economic forces. This equilibrium outcome has some desirable welfare properties. Keywords; volunteers, nonprofit institutions, privately provided public goods

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

Disentangling the Sources of Pro-social Behavior in the Workplace: A Field Experiment

This paper presents evidence from a field experiment, which aims to identify the two sources of workers’ pro-social motivation that have been considered in the literature: action-oriented altruism and output-oriented altruism. To this end we employ an experimental design that first measures the level of effort exerted by student workers on a data entry task in an environment that elicits purely selfish behavior and we compare it to effort exerted in an environment that also induces action-oriented altruism. We then compare the latter to effort exerted in an environment where both types of altruistic preferences are elicited. We find that action-oriented altruism accounts for a significant increase in effort, while there is no additional impact due to output-oriented altruism. We also find significant gender-related differences in the treatment effect: women are very responsive to the treatment condition eliciting action-oriented altruism, while men’s behavior is not affected by any of the treatments.pro-social behavior, field experiment, effort, charitable donations

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, T1, where the recipient is the experimenters, which measures altruistic feelings towards the experimenters, (ii) the Crumpler and Grossman (2008) design, T2, 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, (iii) a third one, T3, with a charity recipient and no crowding out, which elicits both types of altruism. 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 design provides an upper bound estimate of warm glow giving. We provide a lower bound estimate based on the behavior of subjects whose 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 quantify the portion of giving in T3 due to pure altruism and find it to be between 20% and 26% of endowment. 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 we employ, warm glow accumulates and this may lead to satiation, whereas purely altruistic motivation does not.dictator game, warm glow, pure altruism, charitable giving, random lottery, incentive scheme

Protein–phenolic interactions and inhibition of glycation – combining a systematic review and experimental models for enhanced physiological relevance

Background: While antiglycative capacity has been attributed to (poly)phenols, the exact mechanism of action remains unclear. Studies so far are often relying on supra-physiological concentrations and use of non-bioavailable compounds.<p></p> Methods: To inform the design of a physiologically relevant in-vitro study, we carried out a systematic literature review of dietary interventions reporting plasma concentrations polyphenol metabolites. Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) was pre-treated prior to in vitro glycation: either no treatment (native), pre-oxidised (incubated with 10nM H2O2, for 8 hours) or incubated with a mixture of phenolic acids at physiologically relevant concentrations, for 8 hours). In-vitro glycation was carried out in presence of i) glucose only (0, 5 or 10mM), ii) glucose (0, 5 or 10mM) plus H2O2 (10nM), or iii) glucose (0, 5 or 10mM) plus phenolic acids (10-160nM). Fructosamine was measured using the nitroblue tetrazolium method.<p></p> Results: Following (high) dietary polyphenol intake, 3-hydroxyphenylacetic acid is the most abundant phenolic acid in peripheral blood (up to 338μM) with concentrations for other phenolic acids ranging from 13nM-200μM. Presence of six phenolic acids with BSA during in-vitro glycation did not lower fructosamine formation. However, when BSA was pre-incubated with phenolic acids, significantly lower concentration of fructosamine was detected under glycoxidative conditions (glucose 5 or 10mM plus H2O2 10nM) (p<0.001 vs. native BSA).<p></p> Conclusion: Protein pre-treatment, either with oxidants or phenolic acids, is an important regulator of subsequent glycation in a physiologically relevant system. High quality in-vitro studies under conditions closer to physiology are feasible and should be employed more frequently.<p></p&gt

Changing distributions of body size and adiposity with age

Background: Adiposity and health risks are better indicated by waist circumference than body mass index (BMI). Patterns of change with age are incompletely documented.<p></p> Methods: Adults aged 18–92 years in the Scottish and English Health Surveys of 1994–96 and 2008–10 were divided into fifteen 5-year age bands. Sex-specific prevalences of overweight/obesity and of increased/high waist circumference against age were compared using analysis of covariance. <p></p> Results: Data available for 7932 Scottish and 55 925 English subjects in 1994–96, and for 27 391 Scottish and 30 929 English in 2008–10, showed generally similar patterns of change in the two countries. Prevalences of both elevated BMI and waist circumference rose with age for longer in 2008–10 than in 1994–96, reaching higher peaks at greater ages, particularly among men. Between 1994–96 and 2008–10, maximum prevalences of BMI >30 increased from 25 to 38% (larger increases in men than women), reaching a peak at age 60–70 years in both sexes. This peak prevalence was 5–10 years later than in 1994–96 for men and remained unchanged for women. Between 1994–96 and 2008–10, maximum prevalences of high waist circumference (men>>102 cm, women>88 cm) increased from 30 to –70% in both sexes, peaking in 2008–10 at ages 80–85 years (men) and 65–70 years (women). In 2008–10, proportions of adults with ‘normal’ BMI (18.5–25) fell with age to 15–20% at age 60–70 years (men) and 75 years (women). Among all those with BMI=18.5–25, aged>65 years, the proportions with unhealthily elevated waist circumference were 30 (men>94 cm) and 55% (women>80 cm). <p></p> Conclusions: Almost 40% of men and women are now becoming obese. People are growing fatter later in life, with waist circumference rising more persistently than BMI, which may indicate increased loss of muscle mass and sarcopenia in old age. Among older people, few now have ‘normal’ BMI, and of these up to half have elevated waist circumference, raising questions for the suitability of BMI as a measure of adiposity in this age group. <p></p&gt

The Interaction between Mortgage Financing and Housing Prices in Greece

Although the close empirical relationship between the evolution of mortgage lending and housing prices is well established in the literature, the direction of causation is less clear from a theoretical standpoint. We apply multivariate cointegration techniques in order to address this issue empirically for the Greek economy. Our results, based on a cointegration relationship that we identify as a mortgage loan demand equation, indicate that housing prices do not adjust to disequilibria in the market for housing loans. This suggests that in the long run the causation does not run from mortgage lending to housing prices. In the short run we find evidence of a contemporaneous bi-directional dependence.Housing loans; Housing prices; Multivariate cointegration