Staff involved: Dave Backus, Steve Gibbons, Christian Hilber
The proposition that public expenditure ‘crowds out’ (i.e. reduces) the private provision of public services – such as aid to the poor – lies at the heart of the ‘Big Society’ agenda, promoted by the Coalition government. In this project we empirically test this proposition by answering the following research questions:
-
Do cuts to the state provision of public services increase or reduce (and by how much?) the giving of private donors?
-
Do cuts to the state provision of public services increase or reduce the private provision of public services by the voluntary sector?
-
What are the spatial patterns in voluntary activity, charitable giving and the provision of public services through charities and Local Authorities in the post-Coalition years and how has the response to budget cuts differed across different types of area?