Information and donations to development aid projects

- Information is crucial for private donors' donations to development aid projects.
- We experimentally test the effect of the amount of project information on the level of donations.
- We find that more information increases donation levels.
- We also find that the increase depends upon the type of information.

We conduct a dictator game where the participants donate money to development aid projects. By varying the project information, we study the impact of different categories of project information on donations. The results are consistent with the literature finding a link between tangibility and generosity. In general, more information about the development projects increase the donations, however, the increase is contingent upon the type of information. For example, recipient and thematic information has on average a significant effect on the donation, while regional information does not.