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Who Benefits from the
Nonprofit Sector
Charles Clotfelter, ed. (University of Chicago Press,
1992)
This accessible study examines all the major elements of
the nonprofit sector of the economy of the United States—health services,
educational and research institutions, religious organizations, social
services, arts and cultural organizations, and foundations—describing
the institutions and their functions, and then exploring how their benefits
are distributed across various economic classes. The book's findings indicate
that while few institutions serve primarily
the poor, there is no evidence of a gross distribution of benefits upward
toward the more affluent. The analysis of this data makes for a book with
profound implications for future social and tax policy.
The book examines the role of private nonprofit organizations
in providing services to needy people. Each chapter, based on commissioned
papers, attempts to deal with the same deceptively simple question (who
benefits?) with regard to one subsector of the nonprofit arena (religious,
health service, education, social service, arts and culture, and foundations).
Authors were asked to address two specific issues: “What are the benefits
produced by the nonprofit institutions in the [particular] subsector?
Second, how are these benefits distributed across households of different
incomes?” Clotfelter also provides a definition of benefit: “In theory,
the value of a good or service is equal to the amount a person would be
willing be pay for it. The net benefit to a consumer can be defined as
this value minus any amount actually paid, or the consumer surplus.” Softcover,
286 pages, $13.95
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