http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/410/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19423/ 2010-04-07T00:00:00Z Charitable organizations send out large volumes of direct mailings, soliciting for money in support of many good causes. Without any request, donations are rarely made, and it is well known that each request for money by a charity likely generates at least some revenues. Whether a single request from a charity increases the total amount donated by an individual is however unknown. Indeed, a response to one request can hurt responses to others. The net effect is therefore not easily observable, certainly not when multiple charities address the same individuals. In this paper we alleviate these observational difficulties by carrying out a field experiment in which five large charities cooperate. With the unique data that we collect, we study the impact of sending more requests on total donations. The results indicate that there is a negative competitive effect on requests from other charities, but this effect dies out rapidly. Soon after the mailing has been sent, it is only a strong cannibalization of the charity’s own revenues that prevails. This empirical finding suggests the important conclusion that not much coordination across charities is needed to increase revenues. We also demonstrate that charities need sophisticated evaluation tools that do not ignore the effects of cannibalization. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18650/ 2009-09-01T00:00:00Z Charities rely mainly on direct mailings to attract the attention of potential donors. Individuals may feel irritated by these mailings, in particular when they receive many mailings. This might harm the revenues charities receive from their mailing activities. Moreover, target selection by charities likely results in many mailings being sent to the best donors, and hence they might become most irritated. As such, irritation with direct mailings could well be endogenously determined. To ensure exogenous variation in irritation, we performed a unique controlled field experiment in cooperation with five of the largest charities in the Netherlands. Our analysis reveals that direct mailings do result in irritation, but surprisingly, this irritation affects neither stated nor actual donating behavior. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16327/ 2009-02-01T00:00:00Z The authors propose a dynamic direct mailing response model with competitive effects. Purchase and promotion history are incorporated to map the dynamic competitive interactions among the firms sending the mailings. The authors investigate the impact of direct mailings on the revenues of each firm and its competitors over time. The model accounts for endogeneity of the mailing decision and for unobserved heterogeneity across households. The model is considered in a charitable giving setting, in which households often receive many direct mailings of different charities within a short period and competition is strong. The authors construct a unique database by merging the databases of three large charity organizations in the Netherlands. This results in household-level data on the direct mailings households received from and their donations to each of the three charities. The results show that a charity's own mailings are short-term substitutes; that is, an extra mailing cannibalizes the revenues of subsequent mailings. Furthermore, competitive charitable direct mailings tend to be short-term complements; that is, the direct mailings increase the total pie that is divided among the charities. In the long run, these effects die out. The results are also interpreted from a behavioral perspective. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14526/ 2009-01-22T00:00:00Z Nowadays potential donors receive many direct mailings from many different charities, all soliciting their donations. As charities depend for a large part on their revenues from direct mail it is important to uncover the precise effects of charitable direct mailings on donating behavior. Existing studies on donating behavior generally focus on a single decision context, that is, a single donation to a single charitable cause. In reality, however, people receive many donation requests, and the responses to these requests may not be independent. In this thesis we study the dynamic and competitive effects of charitable direct mailings on donating behavior. We present two direct mailing response models, with the first focusing primarily on the competitive dimension, and the second focusing mainly on the dynamic dimension. To calibrate these models we have access to a unique dataset consisting of the databases of multiple charity organizations, providing us with detailed information on direct mailings and donations at the individual donor’s level. In addition, we conducted a direct mailing field experiment in cooperation with various charities. In the analysis of this experiment, we zoom in on the direct mailing effects on actual behavior and on the underlying motivational process. We establish that substantial dynamic and competitive effects exist and that the single decision context can thus not be justified for properly analyzing direct mailing response behavior. We also provide some practical implications of these results for charities. One of our surprising results is that – contrary to the public opinion – charities would have to send even more mailings in order to increase their revenues. Tegewoordig ontvangen potentiële donateurs vele direct mailings van vele goede doelen, die allemaal om een donatie vragen. Aangezien goede doelen voor een groot deel afhankelijk zijn van hun inkomsten uit direct mail is het belangrijk de precieze effecten van deze mailings op donatiegedrag te achterhalen. Bestaande studies over donatiegedrag beperken zich tot een eenmalige beslissingscontext, dat wil zeggen, een enkele donatie aan een enkel goed doel. In werkelijkheid ontvangen mensen echter vele donatieverzoeken, en de reacties op deze verzoeken hoeven niet onafhankelijk te zijn. In dit proefschrift bestuderen we de dynamische en competitieve effecten van direct mailings van goede doelen op donatiegedrag. We presenteren twee directmailresponsmodellen, waarbij het eerste zich voornamelijk richt op de concurrentiedimensie en het tweede voornamelijk op de dynamische dimensie. Voor het kalibreren van deze modellen maken we gebruik van een unieke dataset die de databases van meerdere goede doelen bevat en die gedetailleerde informatie verschaft over direct mailings en donaties op individueel donateursniveau. Daarnaast hebben we een directmailveldexperiment uitgevoerd in samenwerking met een aantal goede doelen. In de analyse van dit experiment richten we ons op de directmaileffecten op donatiegedrag en op het onderliggende motivatieproces. We tonen aan dat er substantiële dynamische en competitieve effecten bestaan en dat de eenmalige beslissingscontext dus niet te rechtvaardigen is als het gaat om het juist analyseren van directmailresponsgedrag. Daarnaast presenteren we ook enkele praktische implicaties van deze resultaten voor goede doelen. Een van onze verrassende resultaten is dat – in strijd met de publieke opinie – goede doelen nog meer mailings zouden moeten sturen om hun inkomsten te verhogen. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/12704/ 2008-06-30T00:00:00Z Charities mainly rely on direct mailings to attract the attention of potential donators. Individuals may feel irritated by these mailings, in particular when they receive many mailings. We study the consequences of perceived irritation on stated behavior and on actual behavior. Target selection by charities likely results in good donators receiving many mailings and hence they might also be most irritated. Therefore, irritation with direct mailings might be endogenously determined. To create exogenous variation in irritation, we design a unique controlled field experiment in cooperation with five of the largest charities in the Netherlands. Our analysis reveals that direct mailings do result in irritation, but surprisingly this affects neither stated nor actual donating behavior. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/13391/ 2006-12-01T00:00:00Z We propose a method to compute confidence bounds around the predictions from chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID). These bounds are useful for ex ante target selection as some clusters may or may not overlap. They are also useful for ex post evaluation of the predictive quality of CHAID. The method is illustrated using simulated data. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7948/ 2006-09-07T00:00:00Z We propose a dynamic direct mailing response model with competitive effects, where purchase and promotion history are incorporated. We then map the dynamic competitive interactions amongst the firms sending the mailings. We investigate the short- and long-run impact of a direct mailing on the revenues of the firm sending the mailing and on the revenues of its competitors. The model accounts for unobserved heterogeneity across households. We estimate the model in the charitable giving setting, as sending direct mailings represents a large part of charitable fundraising activity. Households often receive direct mailings of different charities within a short period of time and competition is highly relevant. We construct a unique database by merging the databases of three large charity organizations in the Netherlands. This results in household level data on the direct mailings received and the donations made by each household to each charity. Our results show that charitable direct mailings are short-run complements, that is, the direct mailings tend to increase the total pie that is divided among the charities. At the same time, the charitable direct mailings are long-run substitutes. In the long run they fight for a piece of the pie that households have available for charitable giving. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7832/ 2006-06-19T00:00:00Z Direct mailing is the main tool that charities employ for fundraising. With increasing amounts of soliciting mailings and with the best donators receiving more mailings as a result of target selection, irritation might increase. As a result, such irritation could cause individuals to donate less, and hence reduce revenues for charities. We develop a conceptual model, which relates donating behavior to irritation and to mailing frequencies. We consider mailing frequencies relative to a reference point, which we call the maximum acceptance level. Furthermore, we allow for asymmetric effects of positive and negative differences with this maximum acceptance level, and hence we consider the effects of receiving excessive and acceptable amounts of mailings. To test our model empirically, we conduct a survey on charitable direct mailings and donating behavior among 213 respondents. We find that too many mailings do indeed lead to irritation, and that such irritation reduces annual donations. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/2201/ 2003-10-17T00:00:00Z De euro geeft meer betaalgemak dan de gulden. Empirisch onderzoek laat zien dat Nederlanders efficiënter dan in het guldentijdperk betalen met de reeks van eurobiljetten en -munten. Ook heeft men - in tegenstelling tot de gulden - geen sterke voorkeur voor bepaalde coupures. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/2198/ 2003-05-30T00:00:00Z