Voluntary Contributions Vote Out Public Ones
نویسندگان
چکیده
Many public goods are supported with both private and public funding. It is often argued that public funding, based on taxes, crowds out private philanthropic contributions. Agents respond to increases in taxes by decreasing their donations. However, the tax level depends on the political equilibrium arising from agents’ voting decisions. In this paper we analyze a variety of motivations for voluntary donations and show that when philanthropic preferences become more prevalent in the society, the equilibrium tax level will tend to be lower and, more surprisingly, the stock of the public good is likely to decrease. JEL Codes: D72, H44, H23.
منابع مشابه
Voting for Environmental Donations: Experimental Evidence from Majorca, Spain
We analyze group-voting on binding minimum contributions to environmental projects and assess how such institutions affect subsequent voluntary donations. Mature tourism destinations such as the island of Majorca (Spain) suffer environmental pressures caused by decades of intense tourism development, reducing the environmental quality and tourism appeal of the island. Financed from the local ta...
متن کاملPotential follow-up increases private contributions to public goods.
People contribute more to public goods when their contributions are made more observable to others. We report an intervention that subtly increases the observability of public goods contributions when people are solicited privately and impersonally (e.g., mail, email, social media). This intervention is tested in a large-scale field experiment (n = 770,946) in which people are encouraged to vot...
متن کاملIs turning out to vote a public good contribution? Evidence from a new democracy
Why do people turn out to vote? By requiring coordination and by generating positive externalities on others while involving a private cost, turning out to vote resembles a public good contribution and is therefore subject to collective action problems. While this has been established theoretically, the empirical evidence is fraught with measurement and identification problems. We investigate w...
متن کاملA Field Experiment in Charitable Contribution: the Impact of Social Information on the Voluntary Provision of Public Goods
We study the effect of social information on the voluntary provision of public goods. Competing theories predict that others contributions might be either substitutes or complements to one’s own. We demonstrate a positive social information effect on individual contributions, supporting theories of complementarities. We find the most influential level of social information is drawn from the 90t...
متن کاملNot it: opting out of voluntary coalitions that provide a public good
Most coalitions that form to increase contributions to a public good do not require full participation by all users of the public good, and therefore create incentives for free riding. If given the opportunity to opt out of a voluntary coalition, in theory, agents should try to be among the first to do so, forcing the remaining undecided agents to bear the cost of participating in the coalition...
متن کامل