How Political Ideology Influences Philanthropy 

Many issues seem to divide Democrats and Republicans, and new research has found one more: philanthropy.

According to a study I saw in The New York Times (of all places!), red counties, which are overwhelmingly Republican, tend to report higher charitable contributions than Democratic-dominated blue counties.

The study was conducted by four professors from four universities and was published in the academic journal Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. They used a county-by-county examination of tax returns in 2012 and 2013 as the basis of their research, and created a model to interpret the data. To focus on the effect that party affiliation has on philanthropy, they controlled for certain variables, including education, income, race, region, and religion.

The result: The more Republican a county is, the more its residents report charitable contributions.