The Effects of Party Size and Dining Time on Restaurant Patrons’ Tipping Behavior : Results from a Large-Scale Transaction Database

In this study we examine how party size and dining time affect tipping behavior using data from a large-scale transaction database (n > 800,000) for a Norwegian restaurant chain. The data consist of detailed information about meal and drink choices, party size, and dining time as well as total bill size and tip amount (if provided). We also merge the transaction level data with information on waiters’ characteristics and customer ratings for the 60 pizza restaurants in the data. The rich data set enables the inclusion of the most frequently used control variables in previous research and allows for the examination of the effects of party size and dining time in new ways. The results show that party size and dining time affect the probability of tipping non-linearly and that the effects are contingent on each other, bill size, customer ratings, and alcohol consumption