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Abstract
Charitable giving is one of the major obligations Islam and a strong Muslim
norm endorses giving to the needy, but discourages public displays of giving. This
norm is puzzling in light of previous evidence, suggesting that making donations
public often increases giving. We report the results two field experiments with
534 and 186 participants at Moroccan educational institutions (among them two
religious schools) to assess the effects this moral prescription on actual giving levels
in anonymous and public settings. Subjects who participated in a paid study
were given the option to donate from their payment to a local orphanage, under
treatments that varied the publicity of the donation and the salience of Islamic
values. In the salient Islamic treatment, anonymity of donations significantly
increased donation incidence from 59% to 77% percent as well as average donations
for religious subjects from 8.90 to 13.00 Dh. This findings stand in stark contrast
to most previous findings in the charitable giving literature and suggest to rethink
fundraising strategies in Muslim populations.