Cagla Okten

Determinants of donations in private nonprofit markets

Abstract We estimate the responsiveness of donations to a number of economic variables, including price, advertising, and the availability of revenue from such other sources as government grants and program service sales. Utilizing a set of IRS data on individual nonprofit organizations in each of seven industries — including hospitals and higher education — for the years 1982–1994, we find distinct overall patterns as well as notable variation across industries. A nonprofit organization’s fundraising expenditures are estimated to exert two countervailing effects on donations — the direct, advertising and information, effect augments donations, while the indirect effect, on the ‘price’ of donating, has a negative effect. We do not find evidence that fundraising is carried to the profit-maximizing levels. In some industries fundraising is substantially short of that level, while in other industries it is excessive, implying that the marginal return to fundraising is exceeded by the cost. Focusing on whether revenue from other sources affects donations to a nonprofit organization, we find evidence that revenue from either government grants or from the organization’s own program sales activity generally does not crowd-out private donations. To the contrary, in most industries there are significant positive effects.

The determinants of privatization prices: evidence from Turkey

This paper analyses the determinants of privatization prices in a multi-industry study using a sample of 68 recently privatized firms from Turkey. Results show that revenue and market characteristics are significant determinants of privatization prices while current cost and profit indicators are not. It is argued that potential buyers regard these state firms as inefficient, therefore do not take into consideration their current costs and profits in determining their value. When the dependent variable is altered by dividing the firms privatization price by the firms sales (revenues), it is found that sales-adjusted privatization prices are responsive to firms profit margins. However, this result does not hold when the sample is restricted to a single industry. Profit margins along with other profitability and firm efficiency measures are no longer significant determinants of sales-adjusted privatization prices in the cement industry analysis. Unexploited production opportunities measured by capacity utilization ratios, and complete private ownership resume a more important role.

Is Roger Federer more loss averse than Serena Williams

ABSTRACT Using data from the high-stakes 2013 Dubai professional tennis tournament, we find that, compared with a tied score, (i) male players have a higher serve speed and thus exhibit more effort when behind in score, and their serve speeds get less sensitive to losses or gains when score difference gets too large, and (ii) female players do not change their serve speed when behind, while serving slower when ahead. Thus, male players comply more with Prospect Theory exhibiting more loss aversion and reflection effect. Our results are robust to controlling for player fixed effects and characteristics with player random effects.

Labor-Force Participation of Married Women in Turkey: A Study of the Added-Worker Effect and the Discouraged-Worker Effect

ABSTRACT We analyze married women’s labor-supply responses to their husbands’ job loss (added-worker effect) and worsening of unemployment conditions (discouraged-worker effect). We construct six two-year pseudopanels based on the previous year’s labor market outcomes using nationally representative Turkish Household Labor Force Surveys from 2005 to 2010. We find that women whose husbands involuntarily transition from employment to unemployment are more likely to participate in the labor force. We pool the six-year pseudopanels and examine the effects of aggregate employment conditions on wives’ transition to the labor force. A worsening of unemployment conditions has a small discouraging effect on wives’ labor-supply responses.

Giving in Indonesia: A Culture of Philanthropy Rooted in Islamic Tradition

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, with a population estimated at 237 million in 2010 (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2010). Indonesia’s national motto, ‘Unity in Diversity’ is a reference to its heterogeneous religious, cultural and ethnic traditions. The size and scope of the philanthropic sector reflects the country’s changing geographic and economic landscape.