• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.61-84
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• 2016

Competing theories predict that others' contributions might be either substitutes or complements to one's own. Based on such competing theoretical discussions, this study attempted to examine the relationship between information about other citizens' giving behavior and citizens' giving. To achieve study objective, this study utilized a natural field experiment that investigates citizens' voluntary contributions to three types of kettle (transparent kettle with no money, transparent kettle with a large amount of bills and coinage, and red invisible kettle) during Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign in 2011 and 2012. The experiment took place at subway stations which does not differences in the amount donated in previous years. In this field experiment, this study manipulated information about other citizens' giving behavior available to citizens by altering the different red kettle donation boxes. This study found that there are no positive or negative information effect on individual citizens' contributions. The results did not show either crowding-out effect or crowing-in effect. Thus, this study showed that social information has statistically non-significant impact on the propensity to donate and the amount donated.