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on Nudge and Boosting |
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Issue of 2025–08–11
three papers chosen by Marco Novarese, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Chiara Farronato; Andrey Fradkin; Tesary Lin |
| Abstract: | We study the welfare consequences of choice architecture for online privacy using a field experiment that randomizes cookie consent banners. We study three ways in which firms or policymakers can influence choices: (1) nudging users through banner design to encourage acceptance of cookie tracking; (2) setting defaults when users dismiss banners; and (3) implementing consent decisions at the website versus browser level. Absent design manipulation, users accept all cookies more than half of the time. Placing cookie options behind extra clicks strongly influences choices, shifting users toward more easily accessible alternatives. Many users dismiss banners without making an explicit choice, underscoring the importance of default settings. Survey evidence further reveals substantial confusion about default settings. Using a structural model, we find that among consent policies requiring site-specific decisions, consumer surplus is maximized when consent interfaces clearly display all options and default to acceptance in the absence of an explicit choice. However, the welfare gains from optimizing banner design are much smaller than those from adopting browser-level consent, which eliminates the time costs of repeated decisions. |
| JEL: | C93 D18 D83 D91 K20 L51 L86 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34025 |
| By: | Gary Charness; Ramon Cobo-Reyes; Nicola Lacetera; Juan A. Lacomba; Francisco Lagos; Mario Macis; Juliette Milgram-Baleix; María José Ruiz-Martos |
| Abstract: | We conducted a large-scale field experiment in Granada, Spain, to assess the motivating effect on blood donation of matching each attempt to donate with a charitable contribution pledge for children in developing countries. The intervention involved 344 blood drives and 21, 888 participants. Compared to a control condition with no pledges, the pro-social incentives significantly increased blood donation rates by approximately 5% on average. Offering a day or a week’s worth of food for vulnerable populations led to the largest and most robust increases in donations, and repeated exposure to incentives had a reinforcing effect on subsequent donation behavior, especially for individuals who previously donated when incentivized. An auxiliary survey examining the perceived importance and motivational impact of food-related incentives corroborates our findings. Our results suggest that coordination between blood donation campaigns and humanitarian aid programs could enhance the blood supply at minimal additional cost. More broadly, policymakers and nonprofit organizations can align global and local altruism by linking humanitarian assistance with initiatives promoting civic engagement and public health. |
| JEL: | C93 D90 I12 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34038 |
| By: | Amelia Ahles; Joanna Lahey; Marco A. Palma |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effectiveness of donation matching gift schemes using lotteries for increasing charitable giving relative to deterministic matches of equivalent or higher expected value and a no-match control. We recruit 1, 402 online participants and randomly assign them to one of seven conditions: No Match (Control), and two sets of matching schemes of varying equivalent expected values: EV=1 (1:1 Deterministic Match, 1:10% of 10 tokens, and 1:1% of 100) and EV=0.5 (2:1 Deterministic Match, 1:1% of 50 tokens and 1:0.5% of 100), where one token is $0.50. Participants complete three 10-token allocation decisions for hunger-related charities with one allocation randomly selected for realization. The 1:1 Match significantly increases giving by 15.7% compared to No Match. We find that matching schemes with a small probability of a very large amount (1% and 0.5% of 100) elicit significantly higher rates of giving compared to No Match (Mann-Whitney p=0.019 and p=0.096 respectively) and do not statistically differ from the 1:1 Match (Mann-Whitney p=0.976 and p=0.622 respectively). Our results suggest nonprofits can use matching gift donations more efficiently through lottery matching donation schemes while increasing downstream donations. |
| JEL: | C90 D64 H41 L3 L30 L31 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34022 |