Social Policy Bonds blog: Interesting

18 September 2007

Interesting

From Harper's Index:

Percentage of American adults held in either prisons or mental institutions in 1953 and today, respectively: 0.67, 0.68
Percentage of these adults in 1953 who were in mental institutions: 75
Percentage today who are in prisons: 97
Source: Harper's Magazine, April 2007 (page 17)

Those figures might go a long way toward explaining the rise in crime rates over the past five decades. Currently, despite talk of 'joined-up government', mental health and crime are seen in the west as two almost wholly distinct policy remits. It's certainly convenient, administratively, to do so. But in doing so do we optimize social welfare? I don't know what projects a Social Policy Bond regime aiming to reduce crime would stimulate, but investors would at least have incentives to explore the linkages and answer such questions.

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Social Policy Bonds in the media

13 June 2018: my short article Make Social Impact Bonds Tradeable, appears on the website of Alliance, a magazine for philanthropy and social investment.

25 May 2018: a short article on Social Policy Bonds and their possible application in India, appears on Market Express (India). It is by Dr Ashok V Desai and titled Incentivizing welfare.

9 October 2015: An article by Greg Bearup on the genesis of the Social Policy Bond idea, and application of a version of it in Australia appears in the Weekend Australian Magazine. (The article can also be downloaded as a pdf from here.)

October 2013: Professor Robert Shiller of Yale University, is named as one of the three winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics. His Nobel Prize lecture (pdf) delivered on 8 December, mentions Social Policy Bonds. Professor Shiller has for many years encouraged my work on Social Policy Bonds, beginning in late 1996 when he sent me this letter.

3 May 2012: An audio talk by Nobel Prize winner Professor Robert Shiller at the London School of Economics, in which Social Policy Bonds are briefly mentioned, is available here.

18 April 2012: Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, mentions Social Policy Bonds in his new book Finance and the Good Society. He also mentions the concept in a Huffington Post article. It's the eighth of his Ten Ways Finance Can Be a Force for Good in Society, and is also mentioned in a short profile piece about Professor Shiller.