The nonprofit sector and industry performance

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lakdawalla, Darius; Philipson, Tomas
• 署名单位: RAND Corporation; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Chicago; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2005.11.004
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 1681-1698
• 关键词: nonprofit firms; market structure

摘要

Despite the importance of nonprofit industries in the economy, little analysis has been conducted as to whether the behavior of such industries differs from that of for-profit industries. Extending previous firm-level analyses, we propose a neoclassical theory with an endogenous nonprofit sector. Our analysis implies that nonprofit firms have a competitive advantage over for-profit firms, so that marginal changes in the industry operate through the for-profit sector: As such, marginal industry behavior is identical to that of a for-profit industry and nonprofit regulations may have a limited impact or even no impact on overall industry performance. Our theory has the methodological advantage that standard for-profit analysis applies directly to nonprofit firms, because they can be analyzed as for-profit firms with lower costs. We discuss aspects of the empirical literature that test this theory of nonprofit activity. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.