Just how important social context is for voluntary contributions is investigated in a natural field experiment, where subjects made either actual or hypothetical contributions to a national park in Costa Rica.

This study found that both anonymity and information about others’ donations influenced contributions, implying that validity testing of stated preference methods needs to include comparisons of hypothetical and actual behavior for given social contexts.

In a natural field experiment, the authors quantified the importance of anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity through the provision of social reference levels in order to explain voluntary contributions. In the study setting, the effects of the various treatments were small, suggesting that the self-image as an honorable person, irrespective of other people’s opinions, could be an important explanation of contribution behavior. The experiment overall showed no clear evidence that current practice by charitable organizations is inefficient.

The revitalization of Machakos, Kenya, from overpopulation and resource degradation—seemingly by its population growth—has added another round to the Boserupian vs. Malthusian debate, and may make Machakos unique.

This study investigated Machakos’ improvement by looking at the role of social capital with principal component analysis and found significant differences between Machakos and two other Kenyan regions, particularly in the formation of associations.

Livelihoods in low-income developing countries are generally undiversified and focus on crop production and animal raising. These activities are inherently risky and investment and production decisions by farm households are therefore made within environments that are affected by risk.

The purpose of this paper is to test the absolute as well as the relative importance of these three reasons for non-selfish behavior. This is done by conducting a natural field experiment on voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica.

We investigate the importance of the social context for people’s voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica, using a natural field experiment.

Although conventional economic theory proposes that only the absolute levels of income and consumption matter for people’s utility, there is much evidence that relative concerns are often important.