Arbeitspapier

On tax evasion, entrepreneurial generosity and fungible assets

We estimate the effects of income from various sources on charitable giving using administrative German income tax data. We demonstrate that charitable contributions are not uniformly affected by different income types. While business and capital income exhibit a positive effect, the remaining income sources do not influence charity on statistically signifcant levels. This exercise is not new and has been conducted for (at least) three different purposes: 1) Relying on the described results, a public finance researcher would state that business and capital income are more prone to tax evasion than the remaining income sources. 2) An entrepreneurship researcher would conclude that business owners are more generous than employees, and 3) a researcher testing the validity of the life cycle theory (or its behavioral counterpart) would refute the fungibility of income. In contrast, we argue that none of these approaches can answer the intended question if solicitation effects of fundraising or measurement error of the income sources are not taken into account. Applying a fixed effect poisson model, we demonstrate that under certain assumptions the results can have a meaningful interpretation.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: ZEW Discussion Papers ; No. 16-024

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡
Macroeconomics: Consumption; Saving; Wealth
Tax Evasion and Avoidance
Public Goods
Entrepreneurship
Thema
tax evasion
entrepreneurial behavior
charitable giving
income fungibility
administrative data
fixed effects poisson model

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Bittschi, Benjamin
Borgloh, Sarah
Moessinger, Marc-Daniel
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
(wo)
Mannheim
(wann)
2016

Handle
URN
urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-408964
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Bittschi, Benjamin
  • Borgloh, Sarah
  • Moessinger, Marc-Daniel
  • Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)

Entstanden

  • 2016

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