Abs tract:Tra di ti o nal ly, en for ce ment of con su mer pro tecti on laws me ant to pro vide qua li ty as su ran ce of go ods and ser vi ces was con si de red a re spon si bi li ty of the sta te in its va ri ous gui ses. Un for tuna te ly, en for ce ment is an ex pensi ve, and hen ce par ticu lar ly pro ble ma tic pro po si ti on in tran si ti on eco no mies that have many com pe ting de mands on their very scar ce re sour ces. An al ter na ti ve mode of en for ce ment is through re pu tati on. Yet for re pu tati on to be able to ful fill this dis ci pli ning role, a high de gree of in for mati on flow, or transpa ren cy, is im pe ra ti ve. Transpa ren cy, of cour se, is not so me thing that tran si ti on eco no mies ty pi cal ly ex cel in. In this ar ticle we dis cuss a thi rd form of en for ce ment that re lies much less, or not at all, on the sta te, and that re lies on the mar ket only in di rect ly: Cer ti fi cati on agen cies for ce their mem bers to re ve al their (good) type through cost ly sig nals that can be "en gi nee red" to in du ce a se pa ra ting equi lib ri um. We dis cuss the vi a bi li ty of this sys tem of enforcement in an environment (namely, fundraising) where state and market have failed to deliver a satisfying degree of quality assurance.

In this paper we address an asymmetric information problem in the fundraising industry, the fundraising problem. The problem arises from donors' lack of information about the quality of charities that solicit donations. We focus on one particular solution of this problem, certification, where an independent agency provides a costly signal, a certificate, to charities that can use it to signal their 'high' quality. Our model is a signaling game involving three types of player: donors, charities and a certifier. We compare the decisions and impact of two types of certifier: one profit maximizing and one nonprofit. The assumptions of our model are derived from stylized facts that we distilled from certification systems currently existing in the fundraising industries of some European countries. While the current manuscript is meant to inform the real-world design and implementation of such a system in the Czech Republic and other transition economies, our work complements the literature on certification and provides results that are different from those reported up to now.

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We analyze corporate charitable behavior and the motivation for it in the Czech and Slovak Republics. In our quantitative study we distinguish different channels of support: sponsoring and giving. We do not find evidence supporting the usual claim that foreign firms give more than domestic ones, but the results suggest that foreign firms give to maximize profits more often than domestic ones. The Czech Republic leads in giving over Slovakia, where the importance of large and international firms is higher. No significant decline in giving is found in Slovakia after changes in its tax legislation made giving more expensive. * We would like to thank Richard Steinberg, CORE Conference (Berlin, 2009) participants, and two anonymous referees for useful comments. Financial support of GA R Grant No. 402/09/1595 is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.

Abstract:Nonprofi t organizations in transition countries experience low trust and consequently low income from donations. The study introduces one particular solution to the problem, certifi cation, and examines its impact on the quality of the nonprofi t organizations in the market. The situation is illustrated in a game theoretical model, with a manager, donor, certifi er, and the charity providing a charitable good: for simplicity, charity is either good or bad: A good charity spends all the resources on the charitable good, and a bad one diverts all resources to the private consumption of its manager (for-profi t in disguise). We show that for a wide parameter range and for two different disclosure rules, the presence of a certifi er in the market increases the incentives for managers to choose good charities, leading to an improvement in the market as the share of good charities increases.

This article focuses on the effect of urbanization on violent crime – particularly homicide in Costa Rica. Although violence is a major problem throughout Latin America, few empirical studies carried out in the area use high-quality socioeconomic and crime databases with a high level of geographical disaggregation. In this article, we employ data from all 473 districts of Costa Rica between 2010 and 2013. We develop a model which takes into account endogeneity problems and uses contrasts of marginal linear predictions. We conclude that the degree of urban concentration plays a key role in explaining homicide rates, other things being equal. This effect is progressive: the greater the urban concentration, the greater the increase in homicide rates. This causal relationship is not observed in offenses other than homicide.

Resilience has become a policy and practical framework for addressing a range of threats from natural disasters and extreme weather events to political conflicts and terrorism. Focusing on the context of cities, this paper offers a conceptualisation of urban resilience, critically interrogating its use for urban governance and the political implications it has for individual agency. The paper also seeks to contribute to the existing critical literature on urban resilience. The second part of the paper focuses on the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities programme as implemented in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile. Empirical data obtained through fieldwork and interviews with representatives of the public sector and civil society suggest that while creating an illusion of inclusiveness and empowerment, the 'resilience approach' has largely ignored the structural conditions of extreme social and spatial inequality in Santiago. Local political realities and private sector interests play an important part in this equation. The case study points to a general tendency to treat city resilience as a technical question, thereby downplaying its deeply political nature. It highlights the disconnection between the topography of risk on the one side and technological interventions on the other.

In this study we model how certification affects managers' choice of the quality of the nonprofit organizations they run. We analyze a market with one representative charity, run by a manager with some preference for the provision of a charitable good, one donor, and a certification agency. We assume that the nature of the charitable good does not allow for partial provision, thus, the charity can be of two types only: a good charity that spends all its resources on the charitable good, and a bad one that diverts all its resources for the private consumption of its manager (for-profit in disguise). We show that for a wide parameter range, the presence of an honest certifier in the market increases the incentives for managers to choose good charities, leading to an improvement in the market as the share of good charities increases.