Charitable giving under the behavioral influence of income inequality: Evidence from South Korea

Youngrok Kim

Asian Economic Journal, 2025, vol. 39, issue 1, 3-22

Abstract: The study analyzes the correlation between South Korean taxpayers' perceptions of income inequality and their giving behavior, using 6 years of panel data from 2017 to 2022. It focuses on perceived income inequality, based on the assumption that individuals are more responsive to a subjective inequality index than to objective inequality measures. The results are as follows: First, consistent with the theoretical prediction, the higher the perceived income inequality, the more taxpayers give. This trend holds even when controlling for the Gini index. Second, higher‐income individuals who perceive income inequality as high donate more. Third, individuals who are more pessimistic about future income inequality donate more. Overall, the study concludes that subjective perceptions of income inequality increase the supply of individual public goods, consistent with theoretical predictions.

Date: 2025
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