Tax-Price Elasticities of Charitable Giving and Selection of Declaration: Panel Study of South Korea

Abstract:

In this study, we estimate the tax-price elasticity of charitable giving and address the bias caused by the existence of unreported donations and self-selection to the declaration of giving. To eliminate this bias, we propose a simple estimation method based on intention-to-treat analysis. Using our proposed method and the exogenous variation in tax incentives in the 2014 South Korean tax reform, we estimate the price elasticity of donations to be −1.6 for the intensive margin and −2.6 for the extensive margin, which are more elastic than the standard results that do not account for unreported donations and self-selection. The result implies that the 2014 tax reform reduced the total amount of giving and that tax incentives should be expanded.