Charitable donations and the estate tax: a tale of two hypotheses.: An article from: The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

This digital document is an article from The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd. on July 1, 2010. The length of the article is 8521 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Regression studies have suggested that reducing estate-tax rates would lead to a net reduction in total charitable donations distributed at death. Not only is this notion counterintuitive, our empirical analysis yields the contrary conclusion: overall donations would increase. In rationalizing this donation-decline outcome, investigators have pointed to the tax deductibility of donations in assessing estate-tax liability. These efforts, we show, are dubious. The view that donations will decline is also shown to be inconsistent with axioms of generally accepted economic theory. Two distinct sets of indifference curves that imply these two antithetical views are suggested, their observable predictions derived and compared to the relevant evidence, showing that the increasing-donation hypothesis is confirmed, offering overall a clear challenge to the decline-in-donation position. Our empirical results suggest that most estate-tax payers possess indifference curves consistent with those that embody the increasing-donation hypothesis.

Citation Details
Title: Charitable donations and the estate tax: a tale of two hypotheses.
Author: William Beranek
Publication:The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2010
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Volume: 69 Issue: 3 Page: 1054(25)

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