Acts of God and Government: Evidence for Charitable Crowd-Out from Natural Disasters and Government Spending

Abstract

Is the supply of charitable giving fixed? I explore this question in the context of natural disasters and President Biden’s announcement of student loan forgiveness, using data from the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. I find that Biden's announcement induces short-run crowd-out of both fundraising for and donations to tuition-related causes. I also measure the charitable response to severe natural disasters, estimating a short-term donation substitution rate of 54\% away from non-disaster fundraisers, and that this effect is driven largely by a decrease in fundraising for non-disaster causes in the immediate aftermath.Applied Mathematic