ABSTRACT Title of Document: ESSAYS ON VOLUNTEERING

Volunteer activity is an important part of the lives of Americans. This dissertation uses economic analysis to study volunteering. The first essay examines the impact of mandated service on public school students in Maryland. Proponents of mandates note that individual volunteer activity is correlated over time, and therefore argue that mandates will create lifetime volunteers. Prior studies demonstrate that the observed characteristics of volunteers are different from nonvolunteers. Thus, it is possible that unobserved characteristics drive the correlation in service over time and the policy will not increase future service. Using restricted-access data from the Monitoring the Future project, I find mandates increased volunteering among eighth-grade students. However, by the twelfth grade, I find the law had at best no impact on volunteer activity, and in some specifications it reduced volunteering. In contrast to creating lifelong volunteers, my results suggest that the mandate changed the timing of volunteering, but did not alter overall volunteering among affected students. The second essay examines the impact of survey nonresponse on inferences about volunteer behavior. Time use diaries are a key source of data on volunteering