Giving in the Netherlands: The impact of the introduction of the multiplier in the ‘Geefwet’ in 2012 on the gifts to the Cultural and Art charities.

The main interest of this research is to find out whether the multiplier (a tax deductibility for the Cultural and Arts sector of 125% of the gift) that was introduced in the ‘Geefwet’ in the Netherlands in 2012 led to higher amounts of the gifts that were being donated. This was researched by an individual fixed effects regression. The Data available was panel data with about 1100 observations from the years 2006 until 2016. The data included the amount of the gift and different socio-economic control variables per individual. The results from the regression were not significant so based on this we cannot say there is an effect of the multiplier on the amount of the gift people give because of the introduction of the multiplier in the ‘Geefwet’. Based on the descriptive statistics however, we do see an increase in the relative number of gifts since the introduction of the multiplier, the Cultural and Arts part relative to all the donations increased from 9,7% to 12,5% from 2012 until 2016.