TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Benabou, Roland
AU  - Jaroszewicz, Ania
AU  - Loewenstein, George
        TI  - It Hurts to Ask
        PY  - 2022/Sep/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 15576
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp15576
        AB  - We analyze the offering, asking, and granting of help or other benefits as a three-stage game with bilateral private information between a person in need of help and a potential help-giver. Asking entails the risk of rejection, which can be painful: since unawareness of the need can no longer be an excuse, a refusal reveals that the person in need, or the relationship, is not valued very much. We show that a failure to ask can occur even when most helpers would help if told about the need, and that even though a greater need makes help both more valuable and more likely to be granted, it can reduce the propensity to ask. When potential helpers concerned about the recipient's ask-shyness can make spontaneous offers, this can be a double-edged sword: offering reveals a more caring type and helps solve the failure-to-ask problem, but not offering reveals a not-socaring one, and this itself deters asking. This discouragement effect can also generate a trap where those in need hope for an offer while willing helpers hope for an ask, resulting in significant inefficiencies.
        KW  - prosocial
KW  - cooperation
KW  - altruism
KW  - shyness
KW  - respect
KW  - rejection
KW  - asking
KW  - helping
KW  - image
KW  - reputation
KW  - information aversion
        ER  -