Economic Freedom and Philanthropy
Abstract
This thesis provides an empirical testing of the relationship between economic freedom and philanthropy. At present, a wealth of literature exists on the relationship between economic freedom and other macroeconomic indicators like growth and income, but no relationship has been defined between economic freedom and philanthropy. Using data provided by the National Center for Charitable Statistics, as well as the Economic Freedom of North America Index provided by the Fraser Institute, we are able to test this relationship in a number of different specifications to control for various different factors. We find results that indicate that there is a positive, and statistically significant relationship between economic freedom and philanthropy in a number of our specifications, and, moreover, we find that these results are robust to various controls for endogeneity.