Self-regulatory organizations (SROs) can be found in education, healthcare, and other not-for-profit sectors as well as in the accounting, financial, and legal professions. DeMarzo et al. (2005) show theoretically that SROs can create monopoly market power for their affiliated agents, but that...

Policymakers worldwide have proposed a new contract – the ‘social impact bond’ (SIB) – which they claim can allay the underperformance afflicting not-for-profits, by tying the private returns of (social) investors to the success of social programs. We investigate experimentally how SIBs...