Sarah Borgloh

On the Construction of Social Preferences in Lab Experiments

This paper studies the construction of social preferences in the lab. Experimental subjects have the opportunity to donate to a charity and to allocate money in a conventional dictator game. The results show that charitable donations and dictator game allocations are positively correlated. The correlation is only significant, however, if the dictator game follows the donation decision. Furthermore, while donation behavior is independent from the order of play, dictator game behavior is not. In line with the constructive-preference approach, we argue that preferences are instable and sensitive to outside influences when subjects are confronted with a new decision situation, while in a well-known situation preferences are more stable.

What Drives Giving in Extensive Welfare States? The Case of Germany

Considerable empirical research exists on donations in the US and their determinants, including estimations of the income and price elasticity of giving. By contrast, less is known about the determinants of countries with an extensive welfare state. We address this deficiency by studying the drivers of charitable giving in Germany, a country with a highly developed welfare state, using tax return data of the years 2001 to 2003. Our study not only expands the literature by adding another country. Moreover, it uses modern econometric methods which account for the selection process inherent in charitable contributions. Our results suggest no significant differences between donors in the US and Germany with respect to income and price elasticities indicating that the mechanisms underlying the act of giving are similar for countries with highly different welfare state traditions.

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.

Verteilungseffekte der öffentlichen Finanzierung der Hochschulbildung in Deutschland: Eine Längsschnittbetrachtung auf der Basis des Sozioökonomischen Panels / The Distributional Effects of Public Higher Education Financing in Germany: A Longitudinal Approach based on the Socioeconomic Panel

Summary This paper examines the distributional effects of public higher education financing in a lifetime perspective. The benefits that university graduates obtain in terms of their tertiary education are compared to the graduates’ education-related (tax) burden. To calculate the education-related tax burden, we resort to the proportionality approach and use data from the Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) as well as from the Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure (EVS). We show that graduates benefit from positive net effects of public higher education subsidies because they do not pay back the costs of their tertiary education by their corresponding tax payments. We observe especially high net effects for health professionals, and especially low net effects for university graduates in law, economics, and social sciences. Compared to earlier studies, the absolute net effects have even increased for graduates. Based on the observed net effects we compute a differentiated system of tuition fees that take into account the varying net effects for the various university types and fields of study.

Philanthropy in a Secular Society

In this study we investigate the relationship between religious and charitable giving. We test how income, the tax-price of giving and the German church tax, differently affect charitable donations of church members, individuals leaving church and non-church members. We find crowding in between the church tax and charitable giving for church members, but not for the church-leavers. In contrast to church members, donations of church-leavers and non-members are also highly responsive to the tax deductibility. Additionally, non-donors exhibit a significantly increased probability of leaving church compared to donors. Finally, we demonstrate that leaving church increases donations on the extensive margin but decrease giving along the intensive margin.

Der Non-Profit-Sektor in Europa: wenig erforscht, aber nicht unbedeutend

Immer noch ist die wirtschaftspolitische Diskussion in Europa um das richtige Verhaltnis von Staat und Markt durch ein Missverstandnis gepragt. Implizit wird in diesen Debatten unterstellt, dass in einem Wirtschaftsmodell lediglich die Wahl zwischen der gewinnorien tierten Bereitstellung privater Guter und der steuerfinanzierten Produktion offentlicher Guter bestunde. Diese Denkweise entspricht schon lange nicht mehr den okonomischen Realitaten der europaischen Volkswirtschaften. Diese sind mitnichten durch einen strengen Dualismus zwischen privatem marktorientiertem Sektor und steuerfinanzierter offentlicher Bereitstel lung offentlicher Guter und Dienstleistungen gepragt. Uberall in Europa haben hybride For men wirtschaftlicher Aktivitaten und Unternehmen ein enormes okonomisches Gewicht, die weder vollstandig dem klassischen Modell des Privatunternehmens entsprechen noch als Teil des offentlichen Sektors klassifiziert werden konnen.

Social Return on Investment of Mutual Support Based Housing Projects: Potential for Socio-Economic Cost Savings and Higher Living Quality

Our paper describes the results of a Social Return on Investment analysis of four new housing projects in Germany. A common characteristic of all projects is the central importance of mutual neighborly support to meet the demand for the assistance of older residents. All projects share some common architectural features and infrastructural characteristics. Furthermore, in each housing project, some form of support by social workers takes place. Using a propensity score matching approach, we compare for the first time systematically the costs for support of older people in mutual support based housing projects with a control group of people living in conventional settings. Our results, based on a sample of more than 700 residents, point not only to improvements in living satisfaction, but indicate also a huge potential for socio-economic cost savings. This can partly be explained by better development of residents’ health status.