Transparency in Philanthropy: An Analysis of Accountability, Fallacy, and Volunteerism
This book explores how degrees of transparency in philanthropy currently fit with accountability under existing federal law, including applications of quid pro quo economic benefit arguments and stakeholder "rights" theories. The book also analyzes and ultimately rejects the most commonly asserted calls for changing the law to mandate more transparency from foundations, including broad notions of judging accountability and effectiveness, correcting "power asymmetry," foundations’ abilities to affect public good, and simply because doing so is good/moral/pure in its own right. Finally, it advocates that foundations do more to consider ways in which greater voluntary transparency can serve their individual strategic and operational objectives.
Philanthropic choice and donor intent: Freedom, responsibility, and public interest
Ensuring adherence to donor intention for philanthropic endowments over time requires substantial thought, careful planning, and significant effort by the donor, as well as fidelity of the trustees.
An Essay on the Nature and Significance of the Normative Nature of Economics
It is conventional in economics to distinguish between the normative and the positive. The normative has to do with goodness and badness, and with what ought and ought not to be done;1 and the positive has to do with objective description and/or explanation, with what is and with what is necessary given some normative end. The normative has to do with desirability; the positive has to do with truth (in the sense of either descriptive accuracy or serviceability of a means to a given end).2