Does Charity Begin at Home or Overseas?

We conduct a field experiment to analyse whether a representative sample of the population has a preference for giving money to an international development charity or to a charity helping families in need in the home country. The majority of participants reveal a preference for giving to the local charity, rather than the international development charity. Participants were given the option of commenting on why they chose the charity they did, and we conduct a qualitative analysis of these responses. We also analyse quantitatively whether participants’ individual characteristics are correlated with the choice of charity