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Anup Malani Podcast: "Understanding Corporate Philanthropy"

Last week, Anup Malani gave a Chicago's Best Ideas talk entitled "Understanding Corporate Philanthropy." Since we're feeling philanthropical ourselves, we're making a recording of the talk available here.

Here is the blurb for the talk:

Much of current scholarship views corporate philanthropy managerial waste or profiteering. In this talk, Professor Malani argues that both views are correct, and incomplete. Corporate philanthropy is the corporation?s entry into the market for private financing of public goods, also called the production of ?warm glow.? This market was previously dominated by non-profit charities and the government. The feature that distinguishes corporate production of warm glow from other goods is that the corporation?s shareholders and workers are also its consumers. (Would you rather own or work for Google or Altria?) The key choices for the consumers of warm glow are whether to purchase from corporations or their competitors, and whether to do this via ownership, employment or product purchase. The talk will discuss the competitive advantage of corporations over charities and the government, and the importance of tax law in determining how consumers purchase warm glow from corporations.

Full post as published by The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog on January 23, 2008 (boomark / email).