Earned, owned, or transferred: are donations sensitive to the composition of income and wealth?

Steinberg, Richard and Zhang, Ye and Brown, Eleanor and Rooney, Patrick (2010): Earned, owned, or transferred: are donations sensitive to the composition of income and wealth?

Abstract

Using data from COPPS/PSID, we investigate the effects of different forms and sources of income (labor, asset, welfare, and other transfers) and wealth (home equity and other wealth) on household charitable donations (total, religious, secular, combined causes, and the needy). We find that it is important to disaggregate income and wealth and to distinguish the effect of an increase in the level of each component from the effect of the component’s presence. We reject the fungibility hypothesis for income and, except for religious giving and gifts to the needy, for wealth. Past receipt of inheritances affects current giving.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: donations, income decomposition, wealth decomposition, consumption
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis; H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H41 - Public Goods

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