Prior research finds that donors reward nonprofits that report larger program ratios with more donations and that managers overstate these ratios, ostensibly to attract donations. We examine how donors react to inflated ratios. We find that the average donor discounts ratios that are inflated by...

Prior research indicates that donations respond to price and income effects as well as to alternative sources of nonprofit financing. Using a database of confidential nonprofit tax returns, we examine the effects of nonprofits' taxable activities on the supply of donations. We find that each...

The topic of nonprofit commercialization has received increased attention from various groups including donors, regulators, and researchers. Perhaps the most commercial of all activities undertaken by nonprofits are those considered to be so far removed from an organization's exempt mission that...

Nonprofit organizations operate taxable activities in two general ways: as unrelated businesses operated by the nonprofit or through controlled subsidiaries. Prior research and regulatory attention has focused on unrelated business activities, although taxable subsidiaries generate at least as...

Prior research finds that private donations are sensitive to price and income effects as well as alternative sources of nonprofit financing (i.e., government grants and general commercial sales). Using a database of confidential nonprofit tax returns, we conduct the first analysis of the effect...

We develop an analytical model of nonprofit tax reporting behavior and then examine the organization-specific characteristics that are associated with two measures of aggressive tax reporting. Our first measure is based on a distributional analysis which finds that an abnormally large number of...

Prior research indicates that donations respond to price and income effects as well as to alternative sources of nonprofit financing. Using a database of confidential nonprofit tax returns, we examine the effects of nonprofits' taxable activities on the supply of donations. We find that each...

Although nonprofit organizations are generally exempt from income taxation, they pay taxes on profits from activities unrelated to their primary exempt purpose. Congress intended this tax on unrelated business activities to prevent unfair competition with for-profit businesses and to raise...