Monday, August 2, 2004

Robert Cooter (UC-Berkeley) has published The Donation Registry, 72 Fordham L. Rev. 1981 (2004). Here is the opening paragraph:

When Al Gore disclosed his 1997 tax return, he revealed that his cash contributions to charity were $353 and his income was $197,000. Charitable organizations were distressed by the example he set. The typical person in his tax bracket was giving ten times as much. There was much discussion about the appropriateness of his behavior and he defended himself in various ways. I drew two conclusions from this case. First, the social norm with respect to charitable giving is relatively inchoate, by which I mean nobody really knows how much you are supposed to give. Second, except for a few famous politicians like Al Gore, people who fail to meet their charitable obligations do not suffer criticism or social sanctions. We don’t know exactly how much we ought to give to charity, and we don’t have effective institutions to enforce the obligation. Consequently, we don’t give very much to charity.