Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA 91711;
Department of Applied Economics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Mar 19;116(12):5334-5340. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1805336115. Epub 2018 Oct 3.
Many environmental nonprofit groups are assumed to provide public goods. While an extensive literature examines why donors join and give to nonprofits, none directly tests whether donations actually provide public goods. We seek such a test by using a common form of environmental organization: watershed groups. We find their increased presence resulted in lower dissolved oxygen deficiency and higher proportions of swimmable and fishable water bodies. Increased donations to and expenditures by the groups also improved water quality. Thus, private groups likely played a role in mitigating environmental problems. Overall, our results indicate private provision of a public good by nonprofit organizations.
许多环境非营利组织被认为提供公共物品。虽然有大量文献研究了为什么捐赠者加入和向非营利组织捐款，但没有直接测试捐款是否确实提供了公共物品。我们通过使用一种常见的环境组织形式：流域组织来进行这样的测试。我们发现，它们的增加使得溶解氧缺乏减少，可游泳和可捕鱼的水体比例增加。流域组织收到的捐款增加和支出增加也改善了水质。因此，私人团体可能在缓解环境问题方面发挥了作用。总的来说，我们的结果表明非营利组织提供了公共物品的私人供给。
