This book explores Europe's third sector – the non-profit organisations and providers of social services such as mutuals, co-operatives, associations, voluntary organisations and charities: these elements of a civil society are important yet often overlooked features in contemporary...

In many European countries, the third sector is considered an actor able to improve both the efficiency and the efficacy of public healthcare systems afflicted by the crisis of the welfare state. Attributed to third-sector organizations is the role of a hybrid actor tasked with the professional...

The focus on achieving financial efficiency by microfinance institutions in recent years raises a natural concern on their social outcome, outreach to the poor. Using a stochastic frontier approach on sample microfinance providers in Ethiopia, this paper analysed the effect of an increasingly...

The recent era of economic turbulence has generated a growing enthusiasm for an increase in new and original economic insights based around the concepts of reciprocity and social enterprise. This stimulating and thought-provoking Handbook not only encourages and supports this growth, but also...

Nel dibattito economico si possono individuare tre filoni interpretativi delle motivazioni della nascita dell'impresa cooperativa. Il primo vede nella cooperativa un'impresa generalmente meno efficiente dell'impresa di capitali (perche' manca lo stimolo del profitto) e che puo' avere una qualche...

We present a general equilibrium model where manufacturing and service firms coexist. The quality of the service depends on the workers' effort. Two institutional regimes are compared, in which the service-providing firms are for-profit enterprises or, alternatively, nonprofit organizations. The...