Charitable giving to humanitarian organizations in Spain

Abstract

This paper studies influences on private donations in Spain. After surveying economic theory and past empirical findings on charitable behavior, I introduce Spanish microdata from 1992 on giving to humanitarian organizations. Using binary and multinomial logit models, I probe the likelihood of giving to these organizations, as well as that of stating different reasons for not giving. I find that the variable that most strongly predicts giving is income, and that, while most respondents that do not give cite financial reasons, lack of knowledge of the charities better explains low giving among most specific demographic groups. I discuss the implications of these results for public policy and nonprofit management. Classification-JEL : L3.. Nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, Spanish economy.