Do community needs affect the decision to volunteer? The case of refugees in Germany

Annalisa Tassi

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024, vol. 227, issue C

Abstract: I study the relationship between changes in community needs and the supply of voluntary work. I present basic theoretical considerations, which suggest that the relationship between voluntary work and an increase in community needs is ambiguous. Then, I test the relationship empirically by proxying community needs with the number of needy people, i.e., refugees, in a county, and by exploiting the quasi-random allocation of refugees within Germany. I find that doubling the number of refugees increases the probability of volunteering by about 2 percentage points. These estimates imply that 1.45 million people additionally volunteered during the refugee crisis, i.e., more than one person per refugee.

Keywords: Voluntary work; Community needs; Refugee crisis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 H49 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:227:y:2024:i:c:s016726812400372x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106758

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