Lott, Shelly, Dietz, and Mitchell, The Regulatory Breadth Index: A New Tool for the Measurement and Comparison of State-Level Charity Regulation in the United States

Cindy M. Lott (Indiana), Mary L. Shelly (Penn), Nathan Dietz (Independent), and George E. Mitchell (Baruch) have published The Regulatory Breadth Index: A New Tool for the Measurement and Comparison of State-Level Charity Regulation in the United States in Nonprofit Management & Leadership. Here is their abstract:

The bulk of charity regulation in the United States occurs at the state level, yet state-level charity regulation remains relatively under-researched within nonprofit scholarship, particularly from a comparative perspective. The complexity and variation in statutory regulation, coupled with the large volume of legal research required to study state-level charity regulation systematically, has impeded scholarly progress toward a better understanding of the US charitable sector. We address this problem by deriving a state-level charity regulatory breadth index (RBI) that will enable nonprofit researchers to contextualize state-level charity research within a broader framework and to incorporate state-level regulation into analyses across states. Policymakers can also benefit from the ability to benchmark their regulatory regimes against their peers.

Samuel D. Brunson