by Cristian Abarca
This paper examines the influence of wealth origin on the philanthropic patterns of American billionaires by analyzing the history of philanthropy in the United States, current social and economic theories of philanthropy, and quantitative datas sets provided by Forbes and the IRS that assess both ultra-wealthy donors and the organizations they contribute to. The obtained quantitative insights will also be used to evaluate the accuracy of existing qualitative theories of the ultra-wealthy’s philanthropy. The result of this study illustrates that organizations endowed by the ultra-wealthy dominate the American philanthropic sector, and there is a noticeable correlation between origin of wealth and generosity, with earned wealth individuals being more generous.
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