Get by with a little help from my friends: A recent history of charitable organisations in economic theory

Over the past 40 years the development of economic theories of charitable organisations has closely followed the literature on altruism. This paper argues that the debate around altruistic behaviour sparked by Richard Titmuss's analysis of the economics of blood donations in 1970 led to a succession of economic theories of charity, moving altruism from the fringes to the core of the theory. While initially based on the collective provision of public goods, they have now embraced the 'warm-glow' literature, but the full implications of behavioural economics for our understanding of charities have yet to be realised.