Philanthropy in a Secular Society

Benjamin Bittschi, Sarah Borgloh and Berthold U. Wigger

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), 2020, vol. 176, issue 4, 640-664

Abstract: We investigate the relationship between religious and charitable giving. We find crowding in between the German church tax and charitable giving for church members, but not for church leavers. In contrast to church members, donations of church leavers and nonmembers are also highly responsive to the tax deductibility. Additionally, nondonors exhibit a significantly increased probability of leaving their church compared to donors. Finally, leaving the church increases donations on the extensive margin but decreases them along the intensive margin. Our results suggest that a more secular society may lead to diminished donations through a declining crowding-in effect of religious giving on other charitable donations.

Keywords: charitable giving; secularization; church tax; Germany; fixed-effects Poisson model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H24 H41 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Philanthropy in a secular society (2016)
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DOI: 10.1628/jite-2020-0038

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