IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/max/cprwps/41.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Private Philanthropy and the Economics of Public Radio

Author

Listed:
  • Arthur C. Brooks

Abstract

Public radio in the United States receives both direct and indirect government funding. Direct subsidies come in the form of lump-sum and matching grants, while indirect subsidies proceed from tax revenues foregone on deductible private donations. Each of these sources of government money impacts charitable giving to public radio. This paper estimates both of these effects, using data on a national sample of public radio stations in the United States from 1990-96. I find that public funding to stations has a positive impact on private giving, but this impact rapidly decreases as the level of government subsidies increases, ultimately becoming negative. The analysis also indicates that increases in state tax rates correspond with higher donation levels. This paper explores the implications of these and other findings for policymakers, public administrators, and nonprofit managers.

Suggested Citation

  • Arthur C. Brooks, 2001. "Private Philanthropy and the Economics of Public Radio," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 41, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    • Handle: RePEc:max:cprwps:41
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://surface.syr.edu/cpr/116/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roberts, Russell D, 1984. "A Positive Model of Private Charity and Public Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 136-148, February.
    2. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    3. Clotfelter, Charles T., 1985. "Federal Tax Policy and Charitable Giving," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226110486, November.
    4. Berry, Steven T. & Waldfogel, Joel, 1999. "Public radio in the United States: does it correct market failure or cannibalize commercial stations?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 189-211, February.
    5. Warr, Peter G., 1982. "Pareto optimal redistribution and private charity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 131-138, October.
    6. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    7. Bruce R. KINGMA & Robert McClelland, 1995. "PUBLIC RADIO STATIONS ARE REALLY, REALLY NOT PUBLIC GOODS: Charitable contributions and impure altruism," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 65-76, March.
    8. Charles T. Clotfelter, 1985. "Federal Tax Policy and Charitable Giving," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clot85-1, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kraus, Margit & Stegarescu, Dan, 2005. "Non-Profit-Organisationen in Deutschland: Ansatzpunkte für eine Refom des Wohlfahrtsstaats," ZEW Dokumentationen 05-02, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chan, Kenneth S. & Godby, Rob & Mestelman, Stuart & Andrew Muller, R., 2002. "Crowding-out voluntary contributions to public goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 305-317, July.
    2. repec:zbw:rwirep:0349 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bolton, Gary E. & Katok, Elena, 1998. "An experimental test of the crowding out hypothesis: The nature of beneficent behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 315-331, November.
    4. James Andreoni & Abigail Payne, 2007. "Crowding out Both Sides of the Philanthropy Market: Evidence from a Panel of Charities," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001769, UCLA Department of Economics.
    5. James Alm & Carolyn J. Bourdeaux, 2013. "Applying Behavioral Economics to the Public Sector," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 206(3), pages 91-134, September.
    6. Andreoni, James & Payne, A. Abigail, 2011. "Is crowding out due entirely to fundraising? Evidence from a panel of charities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 334-343, June.
    7. Kangoh Lee, 2006. "Voluntary Provision of Public Goods and Administrative Costs," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(2), pages 195-211, March.
    8. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bredtmann, Julia & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2013. "Time vs. money — The supply of voluntary labor and charitable donations across Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 80-94.
    9. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bredtmann, Julia & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2013. "Time vs. money — The supply of voluntary labor and charitable donations across Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 80-94.
    10. Tomáš Sigmund, 2015. "Vztah etického a ekonomického chování [The relationship of ethical and economic behaviour]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(2), pages 223-243.
    11. Crumpler, Heidi & Grossman, Philip J., 2008. "An experimental test of warm glow giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1011-1021, June.
    12. Smith, Vincent H. & Kehoe, Michael R. & Cremer, Mary E., 1995. "The private provision of public goods: Altruism and voluntary giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 107-126, September.
    13. Kesternich, Martin & Bartels, Lara, 2021. "Do Municipal Climate Protection Activities interfere with Individual Engagement?," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242456, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Una Okonkwo Osili & Jia Xie, 2009. "Do Immigrants and Their Children Free Ride More Than Natives?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 28-34, May.
    15. Dennis Coates, 1996. "A Diagrammatic Demonstration of Public Crowding-Out of Private Contributions to Public Goods," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 49-58, January.
    16. Philip H. Brown & Jessica H. Minty, 2008. "Media Coverage and Charitable Giving after the 2004 Tsunami," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 9-25, July.
    17. Saez, Emmanuel, 2004. "The optimal treatment of tax expenditures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2657-2684, December.
    18. Chan, Kenneth S. & Mestelman, Stuart & Muller, R. Andrew, 2008. "Voluntary Provision of Public Goods," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 88, pages 831-835, Elsevier.
    19. Todd Sandler & John Posnett, 1991. "The Private Provision of Public Goods: a Perspective on Neutrality," Public Finance Review, , vol. 19(1), pages 22-42, January.
    20. Nyborg, Karine & Rege, Mari, 2003. "Does Public Policy Crowd Out Private Contributions to Public Goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 115(3-4), pages 397-418, June.
    21. Vincent C.H. Chua & Chung Ming Wong, 2003. "The Role of United Charities in Fundraising: The Case of Singapore," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 433-464, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:max:cprwps:41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Margaret Austin or Zia Jackson or Katrina Fiacchi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpsyrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.