Giving to poverty relief charities: the impact of beliefs and misperceptions toward income redistribution in a real donation experiment
| Autor: | M. Kathleen Thomas, R. Andrew Luccasen, Philip J. Grossman |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
Economics and Econometrics
Government Labour economics Poverty Inequality media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Public good Donation 0502 economics and business Economics Demographic economics 050207 economics Redistribution of income and wealth Social Sciences (miscellaneous) 050205 econometrics media_common Public finance Social policy |
| Zdroj: | Social Choice and Welfare. 49:387-409 |
| ISSN: | 1432-217X 0176-1714 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s00355-017-1070-8 |
| Popis: | Many Americans hold erroneous beliefs regarding the level of inequality in the United States and the efforts by the federal government to alleviate poverty. In general, they overestimate the extent of poverty relief undertaken by government. Given that poverty relief programs are a public good and likely underprovided, overestimation of the level of income redistribution is likely to exacerbate this under-provision by reducing giving to private charities. This paper considers if this misperception affects giving to poverty-relief charities. We report a real-donation experiment investigating links between contributions to poverty-relief charities and perceptions of federal transfers to low income households. We also ask participants to self-identify political affiliation, religiosity, race, and gender. We find that donations to our poverty relief charities are inversely related to the perceived transfers made to the poorest quintile. Donations are approximately $0.20 less for each $1000 of perceived transfers. Interestingly, we find little correlation between giving and political beliefs. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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