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The Intensive Margin of Altruism: Impact of Covid-19 on Charitable Giving in England and Wales

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  • Esteban Jaimovich

    (University of Turin)

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on private donations using data on charities annual returns filed to the Charity Commission for England and Wales. By exploiting variation in mortality rates across geographic units (local authorities), I show that donations to health charities located in more severely hit areas have increased significantly more than those to health charities in areas hit more mildly, and that this effect is quantitatively large. This differential evolution is, however, not observed in the case of sources of charities’ income that are unrelated to donors’ giving decisions. In addition, when comparing the post-pandemic increase in donations to health charities vis-a-vis to non-health charities within a triple-difference setup, the analysis reveals that the growth differential between them turns out to be greater in areas that suffered higherfatality rates. The evidence in the paper suggests that the relative severity of adverse events is a crucial dimension guiding the allocation of charitable giving.

Suggested Citation

  • Esteban Jaimovich, 2024. "The Intensive Margin of Altruism: Impact of Covid-19 on Charitable Giving in England and Wales," Working Papers 297, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    • Handle: RePEc:aoz:wpaper:297
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    File URL: https://rednie.eco.unc.edu.ar/files/DT/297.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Charitable giving; Nonprofit organisations; Covid-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • L30 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - General
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship

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