Scale Scale Economies in Nonprofit Provision, Technology Adoption and Entry

Kimberley Scharf

CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)

Abstract: We study competition between nonprofit providers that supply a collective service through increasing-returns-to-scale technologies under conditions of free entry. When providers adopt a not-for-profit mission, the absence of a residual claimant can impede entry, protecting the position of an inefficient incumbent. Moreover, when providers supply goods that are at least partly public in nature, they may be unable to sustain the adoption of more efficient technologies that feature fixed costs, because buyers (private donors) face individual incentives to divert donations towards charities that adopt inferior, lower-fixed-cost technologies. These incentives may give rise to a technological race to the bottom, where nonprofit providers forgo opportunities to exploit scale economies. In these situations, government grants in support of core costs can have a nonneutral effect on entry, technology adoption, and industry performance.

Keywords: Not-for-profit Organizations; Entry; Core Funding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cge:wacage:45

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