Month/Year of Graduation

5-2024

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Eduardo Cenci

Abstract

Giving tips (or gratuities) in restaurants in the United States has been and is currently a hotly debated and discussed topic. Concerns regarding proper compensation have been raised, but there is a need for empirical evidence to investigate and solve potential issues of compensation. This honors thesis aimed to answer two questions: Whether restaurant patrons tip more when prompted with tipping percentages, and whether those who have worked in the tipping industry tip more than those who have not. I administered a brief survey with tipping scenarios to gauge prompted and unprompted tipping behaviors. With these scenarios, demographic information was also collected to perform later analyses. After 113 participants were gathered, I found no significant difference detected between participants who were exposed to a prompted tipping scenario when compared to an unprompted tipping scenario. Additionally, no significant difference was detected between participants who reported previous employment in a tipping industry when compared to those who reported no previous employment in a tipping industry. Potential reasons for these findings are discussed further in this work.

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