Does Mandatory Disclosure Matter? The Case of Nonprofit Fundraising

2021 ◽  
pp. 089976402110014
Author(s):  
Putnam Barber ◽  
Megan M. Farwell ◽  
Brian Galle

Do donors seek out potentially adverse information about organizations making fundraising appeals? Do they react when it is readily available? Do they draw negative inferences when critical information is not available? To answer these questions, we consider previously unexamined large-scale natural experiments involving U.S. charitable organizations—tax-exempt organizations that file Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990. Using standard difference-in-differences designs, we find that donors penalize organizations with high fundraising costs when there is mandatory disclosure or involuntary disclosure by a third-party reporter. Organizations with lower fundraising costs fundraise more successfully in the presence of these disclosures. The contrast with donors’ behavior when such information is not available suggests that donors do not draw correct inferences when potentially consequential information is not disclosed. Disclose-on-request requirements, in contrast, apparently do not have any significant impact on donors’ or organizations’ behavior. We then sketch implications for the regulation of donations to charities and their modern cousins, such as crowdfunding and social enterprise organizations.

Author(s):  
Yue Liu ◽  
Pierre Failler ◽  
Liming Chen

Corporate environmental responsibility (CER) is an important component of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) report, and an important carrier for enterprises to disclose environmental protection information. Based on the corporate micro data, this paper evaluates the effect of a mandatory CSR disclosure policy on the fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibility by adopting the difference-in-differences model (DID) with the release of a mandatory disclosure policy of China in 2008 as a quasi-natural experiment. The study draws the following conclusions: First, a mandatory CSR disclosure policy can promote the fulfillment of CER. Second, after the implementation of a mandatory CSR disclosure policy, enterprises can improve their CER level through two channels: improving the quality of environmental management disclosure and increasing the number of patents. Third, the heterogeneity of the impacts of mandatory CSR disclosure on CER is reflected in three aspects: different CER levels, different corporate scales and a different property rights structure. In terms of the CER level, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the CER level and mandatory CSR disclosure effect. In terms of the corporate scale, mandatory disclosure of CSR plays a greater role in large-scale enterprises. In terms of the structure of property rights, mandatory CSR disclosure has a greater effect on non-state-owned enterprises.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-167
Author(s):  
Andrés Strello ◽  
Rolf Strietholt ◽  
Isa Steinmann ◽  
Charlotte Siepmann

AbstractResearch to date on the effects of between-school tracking on inequalities in achievement and on performance has been inconclusive. A possible explanation is that different studies used different data, focused on different domains, and employed different measures of inequality. To address this issue, we used all accumulated data collected in the three largest international assessments—PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)—in the past 20 years in 75 countries and regions. Following the seminal paper by Hanushek and Wößmann (2006), we combined data from a total of 21 cycles of primary and secondary school assessments to estimate difference-in-differences models for different outcome measures. We synthesized the effects using a meta-analytical approach and found strong evidence that tracking increased social achievement gaps, that it had smaller but still significant effects on dispersion inequalities, and that it had rather weak effects on educational inadequacies. In contrast, we did not find evidence that tracking increased performance levels. Besides these substantive findings, our study illustrated that the effect estimates varied considerably across the datasets used because the low number of countries as the units of analysis was a natural limitation. This finding casts doubt on the reproducibility of findings based on single international datasets and suggests that researchers should use different data sources to replicate analyses.


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Gibbons ◽  
James K. Hazy

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4116
Author(s):  
Shuyang Wang ◽  
Xiaoyu Wu ◽  
Zhilin Li ◽  
Jing Hua Zhang

Tax exemption plays an important role in the sustainability of charitable organizations (COs). The 2016 Charity Law of China provides stronger tax incentives for charity donations. Using 767 observations of Chinese charitable foundations (CFs) during 2010–2018 from the China Foundation Center database and manually collected tax-exempt status data, this study applies multivariate logistic regression analysis to examine the association between tax-exempt status and related key factors, such as transparency and donation dependency. This study found that a one-point increase in the transparency score of a CF is associated with a 3.9 percentage points higher likelihood of having at least one type of tax-exempt qualification (OR = 1.039, p < 0.01). There is in general a significantly positive association between tax-exempt status and donation dependency of CFs in China. After 2016, the CFs responded actively to the tax incentive provided by the Charity Law, which in return requires a higher level of transparency. These results suggest that taxation under the legal system may effectively function to promote the sustainability of charity foundations in China in the long run. Further studies are needed to explore in-depth why CFs with advanced tax-exempt qualifications concentrate in Beijing and Shanghai.


2021 ◽  
pp. 80-100
Author(s):  
V. M. NOVIKOV

There is a steady trend in the wide range of literature on the study of institutions: the definition of theoretical judgments often does not coincide and is not combined with the definition of general connections and patterns, which leads to ignoring the principle of systematic analysis of socio-economic processes. Indirectly, this means the priority of the random (individual) over the whole and general. Meanwhile, the concept of an institution correlates with the specific content of a phenomenon or process and is supplemented by a generalized and systematic approach. The study of such an urgent problem of the market economy as institutional choice through non-profit organizations requires the extension of the analysis not only to governmental but also to non-governmental structures, which are an element of the whole. In this regard, the article provides a historical overview of the development of nonprofit organizations and charitable activities as a large-scale social phenomenon, which made it possible to draw attention to the possibility of using the experience of past years for the purposeful organization of non-state institutions of charity, including by improving social partnerships. Analysis of the current state of non-profit organizations in Ukraine, despite the growth in their number, shows a decrease in the volume of charitable activities. In recent years, the country has taken certain steps to improve charity. However, this is not enough. The institutional environment for philanthropy needs to be improved. The solution to this problem is possible with the active influence of the state on the management of non-commercial activities. Improving the tools of functioning, financing, as well as increasing attention to the development of statistics in this area of activity is considered relevant. In this regard, the purpose of the article is to identify pressing issues and ways to improve charitable organizations. The solution to this problem is possible with the active influence of the state on the management of non-profit activities. The development of the institutional framework of the nonprofit sector of the economy means the improvement of financial reporting, greater openness of charitable organizations, streamlining of their legal relations, liberalized taxation and strengthened control over the activities of non-profit organizations. The article pays special attention to the problem of accumulation and distribution of charitable funds. The potential of charitable organizations can be expanded by shifting the focus of their regulation away from predominantly corporate to regional administration, which increases the importance of the institution of partnership in the development of charity. The article uses historical and logical methods, which allowed to study the formation and development of non-profit organizations in the evolutionary aspect.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0243475
Author(s):  
David Mödinger ◽  
Jan-Hendrik Lorenz ◽  
Rens W. van der Heijden ◽  
Franz J. Hauck

The cryptocurrency system Bitcoin uses a peer-to-peer network to distribute new transactions to all participants. For risk estimation and usability aspects of Bitcoin applications, it is necessary to know the time required to disseminate a transaction within the network. Unfortunately, this time is not immediately obvious and hard to acquire. Measuring the dissemination latency requires many connections into the Bitcoin network, wasting network resources. Some third parties operate that way and publish large scale measurements. Relying on these measurements introduces a dependency and requires additional trust. This work describes how to unobtrusively acquire reliable estimates of the dissemination latencies for transactions without involving a third party. The dissemination latency is modelled with a lognormal distribution, and we estimate their parameters using a Bayesian model that can be updated dynamically. Our approach provides reliable estimates even when using only eight connections, the minimum connection number used by the default Bitcoin client. We provide an implementation of our approach as well as datasets for modelling and evaluation. Our approach, while slightly underestimating the latency distribution, is largely congruent with observed dissemination latencies.


Author(s):  
Amy Mizen ◽  
Sarah Rodgers ◽  
Richard Fry ◽  
Ronan Lyons

ABSTRACTObjectivesLinking routinely collected health and environment data can allow for large scale evaluations of how our environment impacts our health. Our data linkage approach advances previous research where residence-based environmental exposures were anonymously linked in the SAIL databank using Residential Anonymous Linking Fields (RALFs). The dose-response relationship between exposure to food and dietary intake has not been widely investigated. Previous research found conflicting views on whether increased environmental exposure to unhealthy food contributes to higher BMIs. This may have been due to different methodological approaches, including imprecise exposures, small numbers, and the use of self-reported BMIs. ApproachThis investigation calculated food exposure environments for routes from all homes to and from school. A Geographic Information System was used to calculate the environmental exposures along all potential routes up to a maximum age-appropriate walking distance from each school. Once within the SAIL databank we selected relevant routes using linked demographic and pupil datasets. To maintain privacy, the primary (doctoral) researcher generating the environmental exposures, did not have access to the final household-level exposure data in their identifiable form. The researcher automated their method so a second researcher could run the GIS analysis. Accuracy of modelled exposures will be compared with actual routes collected from GPS traces of children walking to school. ResultsRemoving access to the final identifiable household-level route exposures enabled the primary researcher to complete analysis on the combined household and individual-level data within the secure environment. The environmental exposures were linked with routine health data from the SAIL databank; including BMI as an indicator of obesity. BMI data for 4-5 year olds, and a sample of 1300 13-14 year olds were linked to associated environmental exposures. ConclusionDepending on modelled accuracy, a GIS and data linkage approach may allow the investigation of natural experiments and intervention evaluation at the scale of the total population. This is the first step towards anonymously modelling part of the daily exposure environment using routine data. A limitation is the lack of routinely collected BMI data for older children and teenagers an age when they are more likely to have the option to choose to buy food on the school route. This work will have many potential applications, including the delivery and evaluation of multiple school and workplace commuting interventions.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciaran Docherty ◽  
Anthony J Lee ◽  
Amanda Hahn ◽  
Lisa Marie DeBruine ◽  
Benedict C Jones

Researchers have suggested that more attractive women will show stronger preferences for masculine men because such women are better placed to offset the potential costs of choosing a masculine mate. However, evidence for correlations between measures of women’s own attractiveness and preferences for masculine men is mixed. Moreover, the samples used to test this hypothesis are typically relatively small. Consequently, we conducted two large-scale studies that investigated possible associations between women’s preferences for facial masculinity and their own attractiveness as assessed from third-party ratings of their facial attractiveness (Study 1, N = 454, laboratory study) and self-rated attractiveness (Study 2, N = 8972, online study). Own attractiveness was positively correlated with preferences for masculine men in Study 2 (self-rated attractiveness), but not Study 1 (third-party ratings of facial attractiveness). This pattern of results is consistent with the proposal that women’s beliefs about their own attractiveness, rather than their physical condition per se, underpins attractiveness-contingent masculinity preferences.


2020 ◽  
Vol 198 ◽  
pp. 04030
Author(s):  
Dai Yanyan ◽  
Chen Meng

With the development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, the “intelligent airport” is considered to be an effective means to solve or alleviate the current industry problems such as large-scale airport business, the large number of operating entities, and the complicated operation conditions. This paper is about the collaboration between universities and enterprises based on the concept of service design. Relying on big data and cloud computing technology, this paper addresses the problems of airport service robots in inquiries, blind spots of security inspection, and full monomer smart navigation diffluence, combined with the basic technology of service robot artificial intelligence and the third-party interface to design solutions to effectively solve the problems of process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 1398-1411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishal Patel

The electronic sharing of medical imaging data is an important element of modern healthcare systems, but current infrastructure for cross-site image transfer depends on trust in third-party intermediaries. In this work, we examine the blockchain concept, which enables parties to establish consensus without relying on a central authority. We develop a framework for cross-domain image sharing that uses a blockchain as a distributed data store to establish a ledger of radiological studies and patient-defined access permissions. The blockchain framework is shown to eliminate third-party access to protected health information, satisfy many criteria of an interoperable health system, and readily generalize to domains beyond medical imaging. Relative drawbacks of the framework include the complexity of the privacy and security models and an unclear regulatory environment. Ultimately, the large-scale feasibility of such an approach remains to be demonstrated and will depend on a number of factors which we discuss in detail.


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