Charity and Public Libraries: Does Government Funding Crowd-out Donations?

Amir Borges Ferreira Neto

No 17-02, Working Papers from Department of Economics, West Virginia University

Abstract: There are over 9,000 public libraries in the United States servicing more than 1.5 billion people and raising over $11.5 billion dollars in revenue with approximately 8% of this total coming from donations. This paper analyzes the determinants of donations to public libraries testing the following hypothesis: is there a crowding-out effect from government funding of public libraries? I address this issue by looking at novel data, the Public Library Survey, and use panel from 2000 to 2013. The results suggest a crowding in effect in all levels of government: 4 to 6 cents in local government, 20 to 23 cents in state government and 75 cents to 1 dollar and 33 cents in federal government. Also, the government expenditure has an inverted U shape.

Keywords: Charity; Crowd-out; Donation; Government Spending; Public Libraries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2017-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Charity and public libraries: Does government funding crowd out donations? (2018)
Working Paper: Charity and public libraries: Does government funding crowd out donations? (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wvu:wpaper:17-02

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