|
Professor Steinberg studies the economics of the nonprofit sector. It turns out that the tools of economics are ideally suited to the problems of charities, symphony orchestras, universities, hospitals, day care centers, and nursing homes. Fund-rasing is seen as an investment that produces donations. He has analyzed the budgeting decisions to determine the value of prospecting for new donors, the optimal level and mixture of techniques, and the evaluation of fund-raising costs by donors and the courts.
Professor Steinberg also studies the role of non-profits in society. Which activities are best performed by an organization that is precluded from distributing profits, and which are best performed by for-profit firms or governments? What is the best way for government to encourage the socially-valuable aspects of nonprofit service provision a tax break to donors, exemption from corporate and property taxes, direct grants, or should virtue be its own reward?
Finally, he studies the determinants of giving and volunteering. Which institutions foster free-riding, where each hopes someone else will pay for ventures that benefit everyone, and which foster a fair and voluntary sharing of the burden? To what extent does government spending on social services crowd-out private donations to charity? Does the charitable contribution income tax deduction encourage donations, and is there a better way to structure tax incentives for giving? Economic theory, empirical studies, and laboratory experiments help us to answer these questions.
Selected Publications:
- “Donative Nonprofit Organizations,” with Marc Bilodeau, Handbook on the Economics
of Giving, Reciprocity, and Altruism, Applications (volume 2). Edited
by S.-C. Kolm, and J. Mercier-Ythier, North-Holland, 2006, pp.
1271-1334.
- “Membership Income”. In Dennis R. Young, ed., Financing
Nonprofits: Bridging Theory and Practice. Altamira Press and the
National Center for Nonprofit Enterprise, 2006, pp. 121-156.
- “Nonprofit Organizations”, with Burton A. Weisbrod, Forthcoming in The New Palgrave, Second Ed.
- The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, Second Ed., Co-editor
with Walter W. Powell, Yale University Press, 2006.
- “Nonprofits with Distributional Objectives: Price Discrimination and
Corner Solutions,” (coauthored with Burton A. Weisbrod [John Evans Professor
of Economics at Northwestern University]), Journal of Public Economics
vol. 89:2205-2230, December 2005.
- "The Philanthropic Giving Index: A New Indicator of the Climate for
Raising Funds," with Robert T. Grimm Jr. and Kathryn Keirouz, Nonprofit
and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 4, 491-499, December,
1999.
- “Further Evidence on the Dynamic Impact of Taxes on Charitable Giving,”
with Kevin Stanton Barrett and Anya M. McGuirk, National Tax Journal,
L#2, 1997.
- “Reassessing the Tax-Favored Status of the Charitable Deduction for
Gifts of Appreciated Property,” with Cherie J. O'Neil and G. Rodney
Thompson, National Tax Journal, XLIX#2, 1996.
- “Reward Structures in Public Good Experiments,” with Martin
Sefton, Journal of Public Economics, 1996.
- Economics for Nonprofit Managers, with Dennis R. Young, The Foundation
Center Press, 1995.
- “The Role of Nonprofit Enterprise in 1992: Hansmann Revisited,”
with Bradford H. Gray, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly,
Vol. 22, No. 4, 297-316, Winter 1993.
- “Public Policy and the Performance of Nonprofit Organizations: A
General Framework,” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly,
Vol. 22, No. 1, 13-32, Spring 1993.
- “Unfair Competition by Nonprofits and Tax Policy,” National
Tax Journal, Vol. 44, No. 3, 351-364, September 1991.
- “Voluntary Donations and Public Expenditures in a Federalist System,”
American Economic Review, Vol. 77, No. 1, 24-36, March 1987.
- “The Revealed Objective Functions of Nonprofit Firms,” The
Rand Journal of Economics, Vol. 17, No. 4, 508-526, Winter 1986.
|
