Contractual and coordination issues

Provision of services by the third sector is typically characterized by the presence of multiple organisations that are mission-orientated. These two features make third sector provision potentially attractive, but also give rise to a number of issues, including how to regulate and incentivize mission-orientate organisations and how to deal with the potential co-ordination problems that may arise. We propose a number of related projects that directly address these issues.

Public service contracts between the public and the third sector (Paul Grout, Tony Prosser)

The contractual relationship between private and public sectors has a major impact on incentives in the private sector. However, there has been little analysis of what contract form is appropriate for the third sector. This project will analyse (using economic theory, legal analysis and case studies) the implications of the different motivation processes and legal structure in the third sector for optimal contract structure.

Competition policy, third sector and public services (Paul Grout, Tony Prosser)

The degree to which third sector bodies providing public services are subject to competition law, both at European and national level, includes difficult assessments of the extent to which they constitute undertakings carrying out economic activities. The study will involve in-depth study of the legal issues and some empirical analysis of the awareness of the issues by third sector institutions.

Information sharing between rivals (In-Uck Park)

Information exchange is commonplace even between competing agencies in spite of their conflicting interests. Focusing on complementarity as the potential source, we will study, via theoretical modeling and analysis, the factors and environments that would facilitate voluntary information sharing between rivals. This study may shed some new insights on how to promote beneficial communication between government agencies and NGOs.

Coordination failure in humanitarian aid (Maija Halonen-Akatwkjuka and In-Uck Park)

Coordination failure abounds in the provision of humanitarian aid. We will study this problem theoretically by building a model that captures the essential forces underlying this problem and apply game theoretic analysis to it. Our aim is to find a mechanism that solves the coordination failure and has some practical implications.