Paradoxes of Social Impact Bonds

Description

Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) have alternatively been portrayed as a promising tool to improve the functioning of welfare systems, or as an instrument of neoliberalism of that threatens to undermine welfare systems. A more nuanced understanding of the promises as well as pitfalls of SIBs has been developing recently, as practical experiences and the amount of published empirical evidence about implemented SIBs have been growing. We aim to contribute to the development of such an understanding by means of a combination of qualitative and quantitative text analysis. In doing so, we analyse a comprehensive sample of 51 practitioner reports on SIBs. We identify two key paradoxes of SIBs. These paradoxes centre on statements that cannot both hold true for the very same SIB: (1) flexible but evidence-based services, (2) cost-saving transfer of innovation and scale-up risks to private investors. We conclude with a reflection how those paradoxes have been resolved in really existing SIBs so far, which strategies of de-paradoxification may turn out paramount in future, and how positive aspects of SIBs can be preserved while defusing their more problematic ones.

Period	28 Aug 2017 → 1 Sept 2017
Event title	2017 EGPA Annual Conference
Event type	Unknown
Degree of Recognition	International