President's Page: Love is Charity

Tough Love or Unconditional Charity ?

Charitable giving has increasingly become ‘tough love’ it has come to require recipients to undertake costly prior action. A common justification is that of greater efficiency: willingness to undertake costly actions signals greater productivity from transfers. However, there is a trade-off. Conditions impose a cost, since the activities required are by themselves welfare reducing for at least ...

Is charity a homogeneous good?

In this paper I estimate income and price elasticities of donations to six different charitable causes to test the assumption that charity is a homogeneous good. In the US, charitable donations can be deducted from taxable income. This has long been recognized as producing a price, or taxprice, of giving equal to one minus the marginal tax rate faced by the donor. A substantial portion of the e...

Multi-society Presidents' page: The value of membership in your sub-specialty society.

When Love Is Lacking

A family can face a crisis as soon as the first child is born. Some mothers are unable to accept their babies and suffer a severe post-birth depression. Betty Moggs remembers the feelings of guilt and hopelessness that she experienced after the birth of her son. Belinda walked through the door of the ward to be met by a sea of eyes, some disinterested, some with a glimmer of hope and some lifel...

Is hospital 'community benefit' charity care?

CONTEXT The Affordable Care Act is drawing increased attention to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Community Benefit policy. To qualify for tax exemption, the IRS requires nonprofit hospitals to allocate a portion of their operating expenses to certain "charitable" activities, such as providing free or reduced care to the indigent. OBJECTIVE To determine the total amount of community benefi...