The influence of volunteers, donations and public subsidies on the wage level of nonprofit workers

In this article we add to the literature analyzing wages in the nonprofit sector by estimating a wage function based on employer-employee matched data for Austria. We concentrate on the influence of voluntary contributions on the wage level of paid workers. By using a quantile regression approach we find that the existence of volunteers reduces the wages of paid employees in nonprofit organizations. The number of volunteers, however, does not have an influence on the wage level. Donations have a small but positive effect for higher income groups only. By contrast, public subsidies increase wages of all paid workers in a nonprofit organization. (author´s abstract)