Environmental and Social Service Charities: Private and Public Sources of Funding

PUBLIC GOODS PROVISION IS A TOPIC OF INTEREST both academically and in a policy arena. Left solely to private decision makers, a public good is provided at a less than optimal level. The clear policy solution is government provision of the good. However, even in the case of govern-ment provision, an individual may still choose to provide public goods, either due to the extent to which the benefi ts from the good are captured by the individual, or to a “warm glow ” received from contributing. Thus, when policy makers choose provision levels, they must account for the level of private provision; otherwise the public good may in fact be oversupplied relative to the optimal level. The interaction between public and private sources of contributions to public goods is of spe-cial importance to environmental policy. Numerou