Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/185550 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 7352
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
This study deals with a specific volunteering aspect revealed in the German refugee crisis 2015/16. German federalism prescribing interjurisdictional assignments of tasks for designing, financing and implementing services for refugees and their geographic distribution have made municipalities and cities primarily responsible for solving problems of refugees’ accommodation, integration and health care. Based on a survey recently carried out in the district of Erding, it firstly demonstrates distinctive characteristics of the individual volunteers engaged in such related local activities (gender and age; income structure; donation types; working hours), followed by an attempt to measure economic values of volunteering. Despite some methodological weaknesses, this study highlights the monetary significance of volunteers’ hidden contribution to overcoming the crisis and the relatively huge scope of possible savings in local expenditure, compared to an assumed situation if such voluntary activities were fully substituted by those of full-time civil servants.
Subjects: 
volunteer activity
German refugee crisis
economic value of volunteering
local government expenditure
district of Erding
JEL: 
D64
D91
E65
H72
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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