Existing research on the distributional impacts of nonprofits and philanthropy focuses on how different groups directly benefit from nonprofit service providers. Given the increasing roles nonprofits play in public service provision and urban governance, it is critical to examine how the nonprofit sector may influence the distribution of public services. Combining the literature from urban affairs and nonprofit studies, we propose a theoretical framework to articulate various pathways through which communities with a larger nonprofit sector may create favorable conditions for public services to be distributed to certain racial/ethnic groups. We further test this framework using a unique geospatial dataset of public park access by different racial/ethnic groups in 2,392 U.S. cities. Our findings indicate that communities with a higher density of parksupporting nonprofits generate better park access for all racial/ethnic groups. However, more benefits accrue to whites than to other racial/ethnic groups.

The fiscal decision of one local government may spill over to other localities, and such externality could justify and inform policy making by a higher-level government. Theories of municipal bond market contagion postulate that once a local government files for bankruptcy, localities sharing similar characteristics will be perceived negatively by creditors and charged a higher interest rate. In this article, empirical examination of the second-largest municipal bankruptcy in American history shows no support for general contagion based on geographic proximity. That is, nearby localities did not pay a higher interest rate after the bankruptcy. However, case-specific contagion formed around borrower-and bond-specific characteristics contributing to the bankruptcy: general-purpose borrowers and general-obligation bonds experienced increased borrowing costs after the bankruptcy. These findings have implications for states considering granting authorizations for municipal bankruptcy or providing financial assistance to struggling localities, as well as for local governments planning to access the municipal bond market.

Existing studies of government–nonprofit relationships have largely treated government funding as a revenue stream of nonprofit organizations. However, there is limited empirical research on how nonprofits respond to government spending changes in a public service subsector where they provide public services without relying heavily on government funding. In such public service subsectors, government spending cuts, thus, represent a reduction in governmental service provision rather than a revenue shock to nonprofits in the sector. Utilizing a unique panel data set of park-supporting nonprofits in large U.S. cities, this study examines how these nonprofits adjust financial management strategies in response to incremental and dramatic changes in the overall government spending on parks and recreation services in a city. The findings suggest that nonprofits increase fund-raising efforts and diversify revenue portfolios in response to incremental changes in the government spending environment. Facing a dramatic government budget cut on parks and recreation, nonprofits are more likely to reduce administrative expenses and spend more on programs to fill in the gap of service needs. Borrowing and using reserves seem not to be strategies nonprofits pursue in such circumstances.

This paper estimates the impact of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014 on the decision to be self-employed. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we employ two identification strategies. Utilizing prereform variation in state nongroup health insurance market regulations, we find that the ACA did not increase self-employment overall in states that lacked similar provisions in their nongroup markets prior to 2014. In specifications that utilize variation across individuals in characteristics that could make it harder for them to purchase insurance if they left their current employer, we also do not find that the ACA differentially increased self-employment. However, in states that lacked the ACA nongroup market provisions, we do find a statistically significant increase in the second year of implementation (when individuals had more time to adjust behavior and the exchanges functioned properly) among individuals eligible for insurance subsidies, suggesting that a combination of time to adjust, low uncertainty and low insurance costs may be necessary for nongroup health insurance reforms to impact self-employment.

Fiscal transparency entails government financial reporting and independent audits. This study postulates and tests the dual functions of external auditors: an examiner who assesses government compliance with accounting rules and an adviser who supplements government financial management capacity. Computational text analyses show that localities, especially those with lower financial management capacity, are likely to adopt similar languages in summarizing the governments’ financial conditions if they share the same auditor, suggesting auditor input in government disclosure. The auditor advisory role intensifies with a longer tenure. Further analyses show that auditor tenure is positively associated with the timeliness of audited financial reports. On the other hand, a long tenure reduces the likelihood of auditors' identifying internal control deficiencies and thus points to accountability concerns. These findings highlight the importance of government capacity‐building in fiscal transparency initiatives and the unique challenges to auditor independence in the public sector.