rePost::Marginal Revolution: The charity tax

The charity tax
The estimated social pressure cost of saying no to a solicitor is $3.5 for an in-state charity and $1.4 for an out-of-state charity. Our welfare calculations suggest that our door-to-door fund-raising campaigns on average lower utility of the potential donors.
via Marginal Revolution: The charity tax.

We hate not doing/giving, but we don’t have enough resources to be very generous. This produces guilt. This guilt lowers our self-image. I think this is the mechanism.