Secular Café: Who is more generous?

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Who is more generous? Nov 16th 2012, 21:21 This article brings up the question again: Study: Conservatives and liberals are equally charitable, but they give to different charities noting Who Really Gives? Partisanship and Charitable Giving in the United States by Michele Margolis, Michael Sances :: SSRN Quote: Charitable contributions are the lifeblood of many nonprofit organizations; however, little attention has been paid to how political attitudes affect donations. In this paper, we first show that conservatives and liberals are equally generous in their donation habits. This pattern holds at both the individual and state level, and contradicts the conventional wisdom that partisans differ in their generosity. Second, we show that while levels of giving are roughly equivalent, liberals are much more likely to donate to secular organizations, and conservatives are more likely to donate to religious causes, especially their own congregation. Finally, we examine the dynamic relationship between political control and individual partisanship. We find that charitable contributions fluctuate based on the political landscape: Democrats (Republicans) donate less money when a Republican (Democrat) occupies the White House. Conversely, having a co-partisan in the White House increases the average and total donations to nonprofits at the state level. In addition to furthering our understanding of partisan bias, our findings demonstrate that the results of a presidential election could have significant consequences for nonprofit organizations and the populations they serve. Back to the WP article, it had noted Quote: More generally, Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, frequently claims that conservative Americans are more generous with their charitable giving than their liberal counterparts. One of his findings, however, was that religious people tend to give more than nonreligious people, and that secular conservatives are the least generous of all. That religious conservatives are the more generous sort of conservative is, however, consistent with the findings of the Margolis-Sances paper.

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