社会影响力债券:利用社会资本解决社会问题

“社会影响力债券”是公共部门吸引私人资本投资社会公益服务项目的一种新型社会合作治理工具.从资源依赖、新公共管理、网络治理和多中心治理等理论视角,可以把社会影响力债券阐释成一种以结果为导向的多方、多层次合同,将政府、市场和社会三者结合在一起的特有的合作治理模式;以共同解决社会问题,产生良性的社会影响效应,私人投资同时获得...

Social Impact Bonds:Utilizing Private Capital to Solve Social Problems

Social impact bonds(SIBs) as a new financial instrument help the public sector to attract private capital to invest and scale up social service projects.Through the lenses of resource dependence,new public management,network governance,and polycentric governance,SIBs can be conceptualized as results-oriented,multi-party,and multi-level contracts where government,market,and the third sector work together in a unique collaborative governance model,for the purpose of addressing social problems,generating social impacts,and yielding return on private investment.After reviewing the extant SIB literature and practices over the past ten years,we find that,different from government procurement of social services and public-private partnerships(PPPs),SIBs transfer risks from the government to private investors,involve more players,and are subject to more rigorous performance evaluation.In such awin-win collaborative model orchestrated by a leading organization operated as an intermediary,SIBs can address some challenges facing conventional philanthropic projects:insufficient funding,weak resource mobilization capacity,poor performance,and inadequate evaluation.Having received much attention around the world,SIBs are experimented in various countries.Yet a review of existing SIB cases exposes such problems as excessive risks,huge uncertainty on project outcomes,and insufficient private investment.SIBs offer many opportunities of future research on risk mechanisms,assessment tools,and accountability.In an increasingly complex arena of social governance,furthering SIB studies will provide insights as to how to address social problems facing countries around the world.