【英语生活】危机时刻话慈善

Last month, Red Nose Day, a biennial charity extravaganza, managed to break its fundraising record despite the recession. But to what extent are charities recession-proof? Much depends on what motivates us to give, a subject that has been receiving a lot of attention from economists recently.

There are many possible motivations. One is pure altruism: we give to charity because we care about the well-being of others. A second infamous motivation for giving was advanced by the economist James Andreoni: the “warm glow”. Warm-glow givers donate money to charity because it makes them feel good.

There might not seem to be much difference between altruism and a warm glow, but there is: warm-glow givers don't think too much about whether the money they give will be effective. For example, research by the behavioural economist George Loewenstein, with Deborah Small, a marketing professor, and Paul Slovic, a psychologist, shows that people are typically more generous when presented with an identifiable victim – six-year-old Aisha in Niger – than with statistical evidence of hunger in Niger. While the altruist would want the evidence, the warm-glow giver just wants to feel the connection. A third motivation is social pressure: we give because we think that's what others expect of us.

All this matters, particularly if we want to understand what happens in a recession. Altruists might well give more. “It's not rocket science,” says Dean Karlan, an experimental economist who researches charitable giving and microfinance. “The poor are also poorer now, so altruists can achieve more with their donation.” But as Karlan warns, not everyone is an altruist.

John List, a leading light in the field of experimental economics, recently carried out an experiment designed to tease out some of the motives for giving. His team went door-to-door collecting for charities, but in some cases they had forewarned their targets as to the time of their arrival. Genuine altruists would be more likely to give if forewarned, for much the same reason that you are more likely to be in to receive a delivery if told what time it will arrive. But people who give because they feel pressured might simply hide behind the sofa when the charity collectors knocked on the door. In some cases, they could even tick a “do not disturb” box to avoid awkwardness.

List's experiment, carried out with two University of California, Berkeley, economists, Ulrike Malmendier and Stefano DellaVigna, highlighted the altruists as those who gave money even when it was easy to avoid doing so. In an unexpected twist, the experiment straddled the collapse of Lehman Brothers and of the stock market. List and his colleagues discovered their “no-forewarning” run, which would normally attract grudging donations out of social pressure, raised almost two-thirds less money during the crisis. Perhaps it was just too easy to say no. Altruistic donations, solicited during the “forewarning” run, tended to be larger and held up better during the crisis.

Separately, List has found that large charitable donations such as bequests are strongly linked to stock market performance, but with a delay. The good news is that it may take time for the crisis to hit such donations. The bad news is that charities may suffer for years after the economy recovers.

All the economists I spoke to were pessimistic about the outlook for charitable giving in a recession. Rachel Croson, an economist at the University of Texas at Dallas, summed it up well by pointing out that in a recession, there is less of most things except spare time: “What I'm foreseeing is a lot of people volunteering to serve at the soup kitchen, but less food.”

尽管经济陷入衰退，两年一度的慈善盛会——“红鼻子日”(Red Nose Day)——上月仍打破了筹款纪录。但慈善组织免受经济衰退影响的能力究竟有多强？这很大程度上取决于我们捐助的动机，这也是近来倍受经济学家关注的一个课题。

可能的动机有很多种。一种是纯粹的利他主义：我们进行慈善捐助，是因为关心他人的福祉。另一种不太光彩的动机是由经济学家詹姆斯•安德雷奥尼(James Andreoni)提出的，他称之为“温暖的光辉”(warm glow)。“温暖的光辉”型捐助者之所以向慈善机构捐款，是因为这样做能让他们自我感觉良好。

利他主义与“温暖的光辉”之间的区别看似不大，但的确存在：“温暖的光辉”型捐助者不太关心他们捐出的钱是否起作用。举例而言，行为经济学家乔治•勒文施泰因(George Loewenstein)、营销学教授德伯拉•斯莫(Deborah Small)和心理学家保罗•斯洛维奇(Paul Slovic)的共同研究表明，当人们面对一名对得上号的受害者——比如尼日尔6岁的Aisha——通常会比看到尼日尔饥饿状况统计数据时更为慷慨。利他主义者希望看到证据，而“温暖的光辉”型捐助者只是想感受到那种关联。第三种动机源自社会压力：我们之所以捐助，是因为我们觉得这是别人对我们的期望。

这些都很重要，特别是如果我们想了解经济衰退时的捐助行为。“这不是航天科学，”研究慈善捐助和微型金融的实验经济学家迪恩•卡兰(Dean Karlan)表示。“穷人目前也变得更穷，因此利他主义者的捐助可以起到更大的作用。”但卡兰警告称，不是所有人都是利他主义者。

实验经济学的领军人物约翰•李斯特(John List)最近进行了一项旨在揭示人们捐助动机的实验。实验小组挨家挨户地募集捐款，在某些情况下，他们提前告知造访对象上门的时间。在提前被告知的情况下，真正的利他主义者更有可能捐款，这与你如果知道包裹到达的时间，届时更有可能在家接收的道理差不多。但迫于压力才捐款的人，可能会在募捐者敲门时干脆躲起来。有些人甚至会挂出“请勿打扰”的牌子，以免尴尬。

李斯特与加州大学伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)的两位教授——乌而里克•马尔门迪尔(Ulrike Malmendier)及斯特凡诺•德拉维尼亚(Stefano DellaVigna)联合开展的这项实验突显出，利他主义者是那些即便逃避捐款轻而易举、还是甘愿掏腰包的人。出人意料的一点是，上述实验在时间上跨越了雷曼兄弟倒闭和股市崩盘。李斯特和他的同事们发现，在“未提前告知”的情况下上门，虽然通常会令人们迫于社会压力而勉强捐款，但在危机期间募集到的资金减少了近三分之二。或许说“不”实在太容易了。在被提前告知的情况下，利他主义者的捐款额往往更为可观，也更经得起危机的考验。

另外，李斯特还发现，遗赠等大额慈善捐款与股市的走势密切相关，但存在滞后性。好消息是，危机可能暂时不会对此类捐款造成冲击。而坏消息是，慈善机构在经济复苏多年后仍将受到影响。

与我交谈过的所有经济学家，都对经济衰退期间慈善捐助的前景持悲观看法。对此，德克萨斯大学(University of Texas )达拉斯分校经济学家雷切尔•科洛森(Rachel Croson)给出了精辟总结。他指出，衰退令多数东西变少了，除了空余时间：“我预计，会有许多志愿者在为穷人提供食品的地方服务，但食品的数量却变少了。”

译者/章晴