Contributions to charitable organizations in a developing country: the case of Singapore

Abstract

This article makes use of pooled time series data to study the demand for donations to charitable organizations in Singapore, a newly‐industrializing country. As in the case of the developed nations, donations are found to be responsive to the price of giving and characteristics of the charities such as size and age. Government social expenditures are found to cause some crowding‐out of private donations. The results imply that the government can reduce its direct role in providing social services, and at the same time meet the rising demand through policy measures to encourage private giving.