Altruistic behavior and soccer: the effect of incidental happiness on charitable giving

• Published date: 01 January 2024
• Author: Frank Hubers,Dinand Webbink
• Date: 01 January 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12541

Scand. J. of Economics 126(1), 127–154, 2024

DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12541

Altruistic behavior and soccer: the effect of

incidental happiness on charitable giving

Frank Hubers

Open University of the Netherlands, NL-6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands

f.r.hubers@gmail.com

Dinand Webbink†

Erasmus University, NL-3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

webbink@ese.eur.nl

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of incidental happiness associated with the outcome of the

Dutch national soccer championship on charitable giving shortly after the decisive match. We

use survey data in which participants were asked to make an anonymous donation of an earned

endowment. For estimating the causal effect of happiness on charitable giving, we exploit the

variation in the emotions of fans between and within teams using two complementary empirical

approaches. The first approach is based on the preference of fans for local teams. We find that

individuals living closer to the city of the new champions (Amsterdam) are happier and also

more likely to donate to charity than individuals living further away. Importantly, distance to

Amsterdam does not affect charitable giving in a placebo sample of individuals with no interest

in soccer. The second approach exploits variation between different types of fans within teams.

Allegiant fans, individuals who attended a match, are happier and more likely to donate to

charity than “stay-at-home” fans when their team wins the title. Allegiant fans are less happy and

less likely to donate than stay-at-home fans when their team does not win the title. Instrumental

variable estimates suggest a large effect of incidental happiness on charitable giving.

Keywords: Altruism; charitable giving; emotions

JEL classification:C26; D64

1. Introduction

Emotions affect daily functioning and often move behavior in other

directions than expected by a weighing of the long-term costs and benefits

(Loewenstein, 2000). Classical economists such as Bentham (1789) had

already recognized the importance of emotions, but economic research has for

a long time ignored their role in economic decisions (Kahneman et al., 1986,

1991; Kahneman, 2003; Fehr and Hoff, 2011). Nevertheless, there is evidence

†Also affiliated with Tinbergen Institute and IZA Bonn.

c

2023 The Authors. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of F¨

oreningen

f¨

or utgivande av the SJE.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

128 The effect of incidental happiness on charitable giving

that incidental emotions – “the feelings that at the time of the decision

are not normatively relevant for making that decision” (Lerner et al., 2015,

p. 803) – can carry over from one situation to another and can affect

unrelated decisions (e.g., George and Dane, 2016). Recent studies have

linked emotions, in particular happiness, to outcomes such as work effort and

productivity (Erez and Isen, 2002; Isen and Reeve, 2005; Oswald et al., 2015),

risk aversion (Nygren et al., 1996; Nygren, 1998; Kliger and Levy, 2003;

Conte et al., 2018), time preference (Ifcher and Zarghamee, 2011),

and altruistic or pro-social behavior (e.g., Kirchsteiger et al., 2006;

Capra et al., 2010; Forgas and Tan, 2013; Drouvelis and Grosskopf, 2016;

Garc´

ıa-Gallego et al., 2019).

Most studies on the impact of emotions on decision-making are conducted

in an experimental setting in which the emotional state is induced. Participants

are asked to read a text or watch a video clip that evokes an emotion

(Johnson and Tversky, 1983). Although the limitations of a laboratory

setting are known (Levitt and List, 2007a,b; Levitt and List, 2009), there

is limited research on the impact of emotions originating from a field

setting on behavior or decision-making. These studies are challenging, as

it is difficult to observe individual emotions and behavior at the same

time, nor can emotions be randomly assigned. Notable exceptions are

studies that link incidental happiness as a result of sunny weather to stock

market behavior (Hirshleifer and Shumway, 2003; Kamstra et al., 2003) and

those exploring the relationship between sport games, crime, and violence

(Gantz et al., 2009; Rees and Schnepel, 2009). Several recent studies have

investigated the impact of unexpected emotional cues associated with wins

and losses of football teams. They show that emotions have an impact on

behavior or decisions in unrelated domains. In particular, they find that

unexpected losses increase domestic violence (Card and Dahl, 2011) and

affect the decisions of US judges (Chen, 2016; Eren and Mocan, 2018;

Chen and Loecher, 2019). In addition, Kessler et al. (2022) exploit emotional

variation from National Football League games observed in a sports bar.

Our study also uses “real-life” emotion originating from a field setting – the

outcome of the Dutch national soccer championship – and investigates the

impact on charitable giving. Soccer generates intense emotions among fans

who attend matches (i.e., “allegiant” fans) and those watching on television

(“stay-at-home” fans), and winning the national title leads to huge celebrations.

We exploit the outcome of the soccer league as an exogenous source of

variation in emotion. Based on the traditional rivalry between Dutch soccer

teams, we expect that the outcome of the competition will affect fans in an

asymmetric way.

The data for this study were collected at the individual level through an

online survey starting the day after the inauguration of the new champions. The

survey was sent to males only. Respondents were asked to donate to charity

c

2023 The Authors. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of F¨

oreningen

f¨

or utgivande av the SJE.