The Effects of Macroeconomic on Local Corporate Philanthropy

Research on corporate philanthropy provides important information on the trends, patterns and Rationales for corporate giving. In this regard, the impact of exogenous variables on corporate donations is an interesting topic that merits emphasis. There is both theoretic and empirical literature that examines the factors that quot;crowd-outquot; or for that matter, quot;crowd-inquot; corporate philanthropy, but it is dated and focuses almost entirely on firm-specific factors. Further, most studies are biased toward larger corporations and neglect to look at giving on a local level. This paper aims to enrich the literature on corporate giving by examining the impact of macroeconomic variables on local giving. The paper focuses on the impact of two macroeconomic phenomena - the recession of 2000-2001 and the September 11th national tragedy on corporate giving at the county level