Suchergebnisse

Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected pro-sociality among individuals? After the onset of the pandemic, many charitable appeals were updated to include a reference to COVID-19. Did donors increase their giving in response to such changes? In order to answer these questions, we conducted a real-donation online experiment with more than 4200 participants from 149 local areas in England and over 21 weeks. First, we varied the fundraising appeal to either include or exclude a reference to COVID-19. We found that including the reference to COVID-19 in the appeal increased donations. Second, in a natural experiment-like approach, we studied how the relative local severity of the pandemic and media coverage about local COVID-19 severity affected giving in our experiment. We found that both higher local severity and more related articles increased giving of participants in the respective areas. This holds for different specifications, including specifications with location fixed effects, time fixed effects, a broad set of individual characteristics to account for a potentially changing composition of the sample over time and to account for health- and work-related experiences with and expectations regarding the pandemic. While negative experiences with COVID-19 correlate negatively with giving, both approaches led us to conclude that the pure effect of increased salience of the pandemic on pro-sociality is positive. Despite the shift in public attention toward the domestic fight against the pandemic and away from developing countries' challenges, we found that preferences did not shift toward giving more to a national project and less to developing countries.

Using a sample of Europeans aged 50+ from twelve countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) we analyse the role of poor material conditions as a determinant of changes in health over a four-year period. We find that poverty defined with respect to relative incomes has no effect on changes in health. However, broader measures of poor material conditions such as subjective poverty or low relative value of wealth significantly increase the probability of transition to poor health among the healthy and reduce the chance of recovery from poor health over the time interval analysed. In addition to this the subjective measure of poverty has a significant effect on mortality, increasing it by 40.3% among men and by 58.3% among those aged 50-64. Material conditions matter for health among older people. We suggest that if monitoring of poverty in old age and corresponding policy targets are to focus on the relevant measures, they should take into account broader definitions of poverty than those based only on relative incomes. ; Wir untersuchen den Einfluss materieller Umstände auf die Gesundheit der Bevölkerung 50+ in Europa. Dafür analysieren wir die Ergebnisse des Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), einer repräsentativen Befragung von Personen im Alter 50+ aus 12 europäischen Ländern über einen Zeitraum von vier Jahren. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das Leben in Armut, definiert über das relative Einkommen, keinen Einfluss auf die Gesundheit ausübt. Bei weiter gefassten Definitionen von Armut, wie der subjektiven Armut oder einem niedrigen relativen Vermögen, erhöht sich hingegen die Wahrscheinlichkeit, einen schlechteren Gesundheitszustand zu erreichen, die Genesungswahrscheinlichkeit im analysierten Zeitraum reduziert sich. Des Weiteren ergeben unsere Untersuchungen, dass das subjektive Armutsempfinden die Sterblichkeitsrate signifikant erhöht. Diese Wahrscheinlichkeit ist für Männer um 40,3 Prozent höher, bei den 50- bis 64-Jährigen sogar 58,3 Prozent höher. Solche Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass die materiellen Lebensumstände entscheidend für die Gesundheit der älteren Generation sind. Wir empfehlen, dass sich die Messung von Armut innerhalb der älteren Generation sowie die Zielsetzung in der Politik auf weiter gefasste Armutsdefinitionen stützen sollte als lediglich über das Einkommen definierte.

I estimate permanent and transitory tax-price and income elasticity of charitable giving in Germany using a rich panel data of tax return for the years 2001-2006. Income tax reforms were implemented in 2004 and 2005. The results suggest that the permanent tax-price elasticity varies significantly by income class, ranging from -0.2 for low incomes to -1.6 for higher incomes. Permanent income elasticity does not vary much among income classes, is rather low, and ranges between 0.2-0.3. The donors adjust their donations gradually after changes in the tax schedule and respond to future predictable changes in price. They respond to changes in current and, to a smaller extent, in future income. (author's abstract)