The Third Sector Impact released its 10th Working Paper “Assessing the Macro Socio-Economic Impact of the Third Sector in Europe”. In it, TSI coordinator Bernard Enjolras proposes a theoretical model for conceiving how the development of the third sector at the aggregated level may produce positive impacts for society by analyzing available data in order to find empirical support to his explanatory model however he does not address causality issues. The paper problematizes reliance on quantitative measurement solely, arguing that multidimensional criteria are needed to capture the socio-economic impact of third sector activity. He explains that outputs and outcomes of third sector organizations are more than those of for private for-profit enterprises activities due to the fact that third sector organizations mainly generate outputs having a ‘public’ or ‘collective’ goods character”. The working paper is available here.
