IS THERE A (DOWNWARD SLOPING) DEMAND CURVE FOR VOLUNTEER LABOUR?

ABSTRACT * * I would like to thank the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy and the Irwin Foundation for financial support for my dissertation, which led to many of the ideas contained in this paper, as well as my dissertation advisors at Boston College. I would also like to thank my colleagues at John Carroll University and at the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University, for their advice and comments on previous versions of this paper. All errors, however, remain my own responsibility.
: Are organizations that use volunteers content to accept all of the volunteer labour offered to them, or do they make some sort of demand-side decision as to how much volunteer labour to use? This paper looks for evidence of such a demand curve for volunteer labour in data collected by the Urban Institute in the early 1980s. Evidence is found that organizations are consistent over time in their use of volunteer labour.     

Regional value added in Italy, 1891–2001, and the foundation of a long‐term picture1

This article presents value added estimates for the Italian regions, in benchmark years 1891–1951, which are linked to those from official figures available from 1971 on, in order to offer a long‐term picture of Italy's regional development. Regional activity rates and productivity are also discussed and compared. Some basic questions about Italy's economic history are briefly considered, including the origins and extent of the north–south divide, the role of migration and regional policy in shaping the pattern of regional inequality, and the positioning of Italy in the international debate on regional convergence, where it stands out because of the long‐run persistence of its disparities.     

Asset Allocation in Bankruptcy

This paper investigates the consequences of liquidation and reorganization on the allocation and subsequent utilization of assets in bankruptcy. Using the random assignment of judges to bankruptcy cases as a natural experiment that forces some firms into liquidation, we find that the long‐run utilization of assets of liquidated firms is lower relative to assets of reorganized firms. These effects are concentrated in thin markets with few potential users and in areas with low access to finance. These findings suggest that when search frictions are large, liquidation can lead to inefficient allocation of assets in bankruptcy.