A review of Professor Linda Sugin’s recent article “Competitive Philanthropy: Charitable Naming Rights, Inequality, and Social Norms” has been posted on TaxProf Blog.
Despite decades of research, experts have not reached a firm conclusion regarding whether and how much the charitable deduction increases giving. As Linda Sugin convincingly argues in her recent article, this uncertainty should not counsel towards abandoning the deduction, but rather embracing it for the key social functions it performs. Shifting the focus away from economic factors, Sugin explains that the charitable deduction is important for signaling the value of communal support and deconcentrating wealth at the top of the income distribution. Sugin’s article offers a timely and vital critique of the charitable deduction literature’s overly narrow focus on economic analysis, and suggests a novel policy solution directed at today’s pressing social problems.