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The Optimal NGO Chief: Strategic Delegation in Social Advocacy

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony Heyes

    () (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa)

  • Marcel Oestreich

    () (Department of Economics, Brock University)

Abstract

Firms face social pressure to behave well. We provide the first formal model in which social penalties for wrong-doing emerge endogenously and are jointly produced between a state regulator and an NGO. Armed with the instruments of coercion the regulator plays the primary role in information provision while through attitude-leadership the NGO manipulates the social atmosphere into which information about misbehavior of firms emerges. The strategies of the regulator and the NGO are classified in a taxonomy of regulatory settings that vary in; (a) the weight that the NGO places on environmen- tal versus business outcomes and (b) community alertness to NGO messaging. In the strategic setting that results an NGO funder will typically want to delegate his bidding to an NGO chief who has values di¤erent to his own.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Heyes & Marcel Oestreich, 2017. "The Optimal NGO Chief: Strategic Delegation in Social Advocacy," Working Papers 1701, Brock University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:brk:wpaper:1701
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    File URL: https://brocku.ca/repec/pdf/1701.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental regulation; private politics; strategic delegation; NGOs; social license;

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

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