Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15907
Authors: Pinar Yildirim; Andrei Simonov; Maria Petrova; Ricardo Perez-Truglia
Abstract: We provide evidence that individuals substitute between political contributions and charitable contributions, using micro data from the American Red Cross and Federal Election Commission. First, in a lab experiment, we show that information on the importance of charitable giving increases donations to charities and reduces donations to politics, while information on the importance of political campaigns has the opposite effect. We also show that similar results hold in observational data. We find that foreign natural disasters, which are positive shocks to charitable giving, crowd out political giving. We also find that political advertisement campaigns, which are positive shocks to political giving, crowd out charitable giving. Our evidence suggests that some individuals give to political and charitable causes to satisfy similar needs.
Keywords: charitable giving; political contributions; altruism; media
JEL Codes: No JEL codes provided
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Charitable information (D64) | Charitable donations (D64) |
| Charitable information (D64) | Political donations (H29) |
| Political information (D72) | Political donations (H29) |
| Political information (D72) | Charitable donations (D64) |
| Foreign natural disasters (Q54) | Charitable donations (D64) |
| Foreign natural disasters (Q54) | Political donations (H29) |
| Political advertisement campaigns (M38) | Charitable donations (D64) |
| Charitable donations (D64) | Political donations (H29) |
| Political donations (H29) | Charitable donations (D64) |