Voluntary taxation and the arts
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Voluntary taxation and the arts R. Andrew Luccasen III1 · M. Kathleen Thomas2 Received: 19 January 2019 / Accepted: 7 January 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The arts in the USA receive little federal support relative to other developed nations. Because culture and the arts are often viewed as a nonessential role of government, public officials have proposed eliminating public funding for the arts. We examine support for public arts funding using a real-donation experiment (Eckel and Grossman in Games Econ Behav 16(2):181–191, 1996). Real-donation experiments combine elements of a controlled laboratory experiment with the context of a field experiment. In this “giving to the government” experiment, each participant allocates money between herself and a charitable organization supporting either cancer research, education, or the arts. There are two charities within each function: one is a private organization and the other a government agency. Not only do participants donate significant amounts to support the arts generally, we observe significant donations to a government agency that funds the arts. We find similar donation rates to cancer research and education as Li et al. (J Publ Econ 95(9–10):1190–1201, 2011), which provides a measure of external validity. Participants donate less to the arts than to cancer research or education and consistently give less to government organizations than to private charities. However, observing voluntary taxation to support the arts stands in striking contrast to current public policy. Significant predictors of giving include the perceived importance, efficiency, and trust of the organization, as well as gender. Our evidence suggests that current public funding for the arts may be less than optimal. JEL Classification C91 · D64 · H2 · Z1 Keywords Charitable giving · Taxation · Laboratory experiment · Real donation · Philanthropy · The arts * M. Kathleen Thomas [email protected] R. Andrew Luccasen III [email protected] 1
Department of Business, Mississippi University for Women, 1100 College Street, Columbus, MS 39701, USA
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Department of Finance and Economics, Mississippi State University, Box 9580, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Cultural Economics
1 Introduction Much of the public funding literature in cultural economics relies on observational data to describe arts supporters and the individual characteristics that correlate with support for government arts funding. We add to this literature by examining support for public arts funding using a real-donation experiment (Eckel and Grossman 1996). We model our experiment after Li et al. (2011) who explore why some individuals voluntarily donate money to the government. They report a laboratory experiment in which participants can contribute money to private charities and government agencies with similar missions in cancer research, disaster relief, education enhancement, and parks and wildlife. Li et al. (201
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