Entry and Exit of Nonprofit Organizations. An investigation with Italian census data

The latest census of Italian nonprofit organizations – compared with the previous one - showed a significant development of the nonprofit sector between 2001 and 2011. The number of organizations increased more than 28% while the growth of employees (about 61%) was even more impressive. These results notwithstanding, the mere comparison of aggregate census data does not give a true understanding of the dynamic of the sector. In particular, the entry and exit of organizations, as well as their migration between different sectors of activity, or geographical areas, cannot be detected with aggregate data. In this paper, we try to fill this gap using – for the first time – census micro-data. Our analysis tempers the optimism arising from the reading of aggregate data. We show that organizations that were already active a decade ago gave the most important contribution to the growth of employment, while newly created organizations were not as relevant.