Measuring Social Investment Returns

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerlinde Verbist
Keyword(s):  
Social Impact ◽  
Investment Strategy ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
First Order ◽  
Literature Overview ◽  
The Social ◽  
Investment Returns

The aim of this chapter is to assess different issues related to measuring the social impact of social investment strategies, and more specifically of publicly provided services. The chapter starts with a short discussion of the role played by services in the social investment strategy, as these services are often considered to be a more appropriate social investment instrument than cash transfers. This is illustrated by discussing the distributive effects of two types of publicly provided services, namely childcare and education. A literature overview is presented of how the employment and inequality effects of these services are measured. Both first-order and second-order effects are considered, thereby also indicating gaps in knowledge for a proper assessment of such services in the framework of social investment.

Three Challenges for the Social Investment Strategy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Myles
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Population Aging ◽  
Investment Strategy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Current Consumption ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Wage Outcomes

Three challenges are highlighted in this chapter to the realization of the social investment strategy in our twenty-first-century world. The first such challenge—intertemporal politics—lies in the term ‘investment’, a willingness to forego some measure of current consumption in order to realize often uncertain gains in the future that would not occur otherwise, such as better schooling, employment, and wage outcomes for the next generation. Second, the conditions that enabled our post-war predecessors to invest heavily in future-oriented public goods—a sustained period of economic growth and historically exceptional tolerance for high levels of taxation—no longer obtain. Third, the millennial cohorts who will bear the costs of a new, post-industrial, investment strategy are more economically divided than earlier cohorts and face multiple demands raised by issues such as population aging and global warming, among others.

The Political Economy of Devolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Keating
Keyword(s):  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Institutional Capacity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Investment Capital

Small, devolved nations and regions lack major macro-economic powers. Yet in the context of spatial rescaling they have become important levels for managing economic growth and social cohesion. They may be exposed to a ‘race to the bottom’ by the need to attract investment capital. Yet, by adopting social investment strategies they can rec.oncling growth with social inclusion. The key factor is the institutional capacity to plan for the long term, to set priorities and to sustain cooperation among the social partners.

When voters favour the social investment welfare state

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 194-205
Author(s):  
Marc Brazzill ◽  
Hideko Magara ◽  
Yuki Yanai
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Investment Strategy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
The Social

AbstractWe investigate when voters favour social investment. Welfare states have transformed their core policies as a result of low economic growth and fiscal pressures. The social investment strategy, such as broader education provision and promotion of women's employment, aims at shifting the economy from the traditional Keynesian welfare state to the high-productivity economy by encouraging long-term and inclusive human capital formation. Social investment is popular among citizens in many developed economies, especially in the EU where governments promote social investment as part of their welfare policy packages. However, in Japan, the term ‘social investment’ is rarely used in policy discussions. Consequently, we ask what levels of voter support social investment policies have in such an environment; which voter characteristics are associated with social investment support; and whether voter support for social investment differs when placed in a broader policy context. To answer these questions, we conducted an online survey with a conjoint experiment. Our data analysis shows that social investment policies are popular among Japanese people, despite a lack of familiarity with the concept of social investment. We find that social libertarians and female respondents are more likely than social authoritarians and male respondents to support social investment. In addition, there is some evidence that higher income voters are favourable to social investment policies. Furthermore, voter support for social investment depends on the policy context. Support becomes weaker when social investment policies are presented in combination with decreasing levels of social security spending. Our results highlight what kinds of social investment policies could be achieved without damaging electoral fortunes.

scholarly journals Shared stakes, distributed investment: Socially engaged art and the financialization of social impact

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Rosamond
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Double Reading ◽  
Socially Engaged Art ◽  
The Social ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
Social Impact Bonds ◽  
Open School

This article examines the implications of the financialization of social impact and the emerging social impact bonds (SIBs) market for socially engaged art practices. How do SIBs, which allow for investment in social impact metrics, shift the broader contexts through which the value of social impact is understood in art discourses? In the British context, recent projects by Assemble, Open School East and others do important social work, yet echo the logic of the social investment market by outsourcing social impact. Rather than dismissing socially engaged art initiatives as having been recuperated by financialized capitalism, I suggest the need to develop new ways of achieving a double reading of these works as they relate to – and upset the distinctions between – stakeholder and bondholder valuation.

scholarly journals Social Investment after Neoliberalism: Policy Paradigms and Political Platforms

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER DEEMING ◽  
PAUL SMYTH
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Investment Strategies ◽  
Inclusive Growth ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
Productive Function ◽  
Growth Approach

AbstractThe concept of the ‘social investment state’ refocuses attention on the productive function of social policy eclipsed for some time by the emphasis on its social protection or compensation roles. Here we distinguish between different social investment strategies, the Nordic ‘heavy’ and the Liberal ‘light’, with particular reference to the inclusive growth approach adopted in Australia. In 2007, social democrats in Australia returned to government with a clear mandate to reject the labour market deregulation and other neoliberal policies of its predecessor, and to tackle entrenched social and economic disadvantage in Australian society. For the last five years, social investment and inclusive growth has been at the centre of the Australian social policy agenda. Against this background, the article examines and critically assesses the (re)turn to ‘social investment’ thinking in Australia during Labor's term in office (2007–13). Analysis focuses not just on what was actually achieved, but also on the constraining role of prevailing economic and political circumstances and on the processes that were used to drive social investment reform. In many ways, the article goes some way to exposing ongoing tensions surrounding the distinctiveness of ‘social investment’ strategies pursued by leftist parties within the (neo)liberal state.

scholarly journals The broken promises of the social investment market

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 980-1004 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Harvie ◽  
Robert Ogman
Keyword(s):  
Crisis Management ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Management Strategy ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Fiscal Crisis ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social

The United Kingdom is pioneering a new model for the delivery of public services, based around the device of a social investment market. At the heart of this social investment market is an innovative new financial instrument, the social impact bond (SIB). In this paper we argue that the SIB promises (partial) solutions to four aspects of the present multifaceted crisis: the crisis of social reproduction; the crisis of capital accumulation; the fiscal crisis of the state; and the crisis of political legitimacy. In this sense, we conceive the social investment market as a crisis management strategy. We draw on evidence from the world’s first SIB, the Peterborough SIB, launched in 2010, as well as from other SIBs, in order to assess the extent to which the social investment market delivers on its four promises. In doing so, we argue that the crisis of neoliberalism and the social investment market are not only in historical correspondence, but in a relation of causality to one another. In developing this argument, this paper contributes to contemporary theories of neoliberalism by investigating how concrete state developments and societal restructuring is being advanced around the idea of linking marketization with progressive social change. It also supports critical practitioners by offering a theoretical lens to identify the contradictions of this increasingly popular policy approach.

scholarly journals Feeding young people to the social investment machine: The financialisation of public services

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania De St Croix ◽  
Ian Mcgimpsey ◽  
John Owens
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Public Services ◽  
High Volume ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Impact Measurement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Green Book ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Citizen Service

Public services operate increasingly through financialising policy technologies in which governments and other funders ‘invest’ in programmes and interventions that can measure and monetise their social impact. This article investigates this shift towards social investment, focusing on the UK government’s flagship youth programme the National Citizen Service and UK government Treasury guidance, particularly the ‘Green Book’ (HM Treasury, 2018). We argue that policy on social value operates in conjunction with new approaches to impact measurement creating a ‘social investment machine’. The machine operates through innovations in policy alongside ‘evaluation entrepreneurship’ at a programme level to reposition young people as the subjects of investment with imagined futures as economically productive citizens, while their data becomes the currency of investment. This shift towards financialisation in policy also promotes ‘high volume’ services, which in contrast to universal welfare services obscure the structural inequalities that shape young people’s lives.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document