Charity and Gift Exchange in Pakistan

Abstract

Researchers have established that gift exchange is an important explanation for efficiency wages. Since gift exchange is a culture dependent phenomenon, we sought to replicate these findings in Pakistan, to assess the prevalence of gift exchange mechanism. We chose to study gift exchange via a field experiment in the simple setting of charitable donations in door to door campaign. Significant differences in outcomes were observed, suggesting a rejection of the simple gift exchange mechanism, which involves roughly equal exchanges over short time intervals. A plausible alternative explanation for our results may be complex gift exchange, which works over longer intervals.