This thesis explores some theoretical and empirical issues in the voluntary contributions to public good. Chapter I contains a brief motivation and introduction. In chapters II and III, we
analyze two non-cooperative methods for either enhancing or mitigating externality-causing activities. Chapter II deals with
positive externality in the public good contribution context, and chapter III with negative externality in the pollution abatement context. Chapter IV contains an empirical analysis of charitable donations by the elderly.
Chapter II models the so-called ``corporate challenge gift'' used in real world fund-raising, and adopts the concept to voluntary
contributions to public goods more generally. We model the process as a sequential game in public good contributions. One of the agents sets a quantity-contingent matching scheme to leverage higher contributions from the other players. Under the assumption that the
preferences of agents are public information and the assumption that
the scheme setter can commit to the matching plan, we show that the scheme brings efficient levels of total contributions to the public good.
Chapter III applies some ideas from a joint work with Professor Robin Boadway and Professor Jean-Fran\c{c}ois Tremblay on
``Commitment and Matching Contributions to Public Goods'' to the issue of reducing negative externality-causing activity. In
particular, it adapts both the Guttman-Danziger-Schnytzer type of rate-matching mechanism and the quantity-contingent matching method for public good contributions to the international pollution
abatement problem. In a simple two-country model, we find that both matching schemes induce the countries to internalize the negative externality imposed on the other country. However, perhaps due to the lack of enough policy instruments, they cannot equate the marginal costs of abatement across the countries, leaving room for
Pareto improvement. This further improvement can be achieved if the
two countries also contribute to a conventional public~good.
Chapter IV is an empirical exercise on some positive externality-generating activities by the elderly. It attempts to document the charitable giving of money and time by people aged 60 or above in the 2003 PSID data for the United States and analyze the influences of some economic and demographic factors on these activities. Income,
wealth, the subjective rating of health status, and years in school are found to have statistically significant impacts. Income and wealth appear to have distinct influences. The tax price of money donation also has a statistically significant effect on money donations. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2007-11-19 01:48:10.777
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OKQ.1974/919 |
| Date | 26 November 2007 |
| Creators | Song, Zhen |
| Contributors | Queen's University (Kingston, Ont.). Theses (Queen's University (Kingston, Ont.)) |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 736937 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner. |
| Relation | Canadian theses |
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