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Nonprofits are not alike: The Role of Catholic and Protestant Affiliation

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  • Lapo Filistrucchi

    (DISEI, Università degli studi di Firenze)

  • Jens Prüfer

Abstract

There are no generally accepted results regarding the objectives, decisions, and economic outcomes of nonprofit organizations, as compared to for-profit or public firms. We posit that this inconclusiveness is due to a too broad definition of nonprofits and that different types of nonprofits exist. This conjecture is investigated by constructing a model in which nonprofits differ by religious affiliation and testing the resulting hypotheses on the observed behavior of German nonprofit hospitals. We find that Catholic and Protestant nonprofits adopt significantly different strategies in the market. This confirms our conjecture and the importance of religion for economic outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Lapo Filistrucchi & Jens Prüfer, 2013. "Nonprofits are not alike: The Role of Catholic and Protestant Affiliation," Working Papers - Economics wp2013_07.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    • Handle: RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2013_07.rdf
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Governance; Owner Objectives; Religious Organizations; Catholicism and Protestantism; Hospitals;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets

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