Social Impact Bonds 101

As of February 2017, 15 Pay for Success (PFS) contracts using social impact bonds (SIBs) have been launched in the U.S. In combination, these projects are scheduled to deliver approximately $130 million in services and serve more than 20,000 individuals. These projects tackle issues in homelessness, criminal recidivism, early childhood education, maternal and infant health, child welfare system reform, and substance abuse treatment. This policy brief discusses the reasons that governments around the country are testing the Pay for Success approach. It also explains the PFS model, describes PFS projects in the US to date, and presents some of the lessons that have been learned from the initial U.S. PFS projects

Towards New Triple Helix Organisations?:A Comparative Study of Competence Centres as Knowledge, Consensus and Innovation Spaces

This contribution explores new organisational forms facilitating Triple Helix relations. Analysts have pointed to the blurring of institutional boundaries and the emergence of hybrid organisations at the interface between university, industry and government. Starting out from the notion that Triple Helix organisations develop and maintain knowledge, consensus and innovation spaces, we explore four cases of competence centres that operate in this context. Comparing them, we identify Finnish SHOK centres as the most radical departure from more traditional forms of university–industry collaboration. These can be characterised as independent legal entities that are involved in integrating a large, possibly cluster-level or technology-focused network, defining the agenda for specific specialisation areas by engaging in all or most of the Triple Helix spaces. We argue they could be better positioned than existing intermediary organisations to deliver the Triple Helix concept.</p

Evaluation of Health in Pregnancy grants in Scotland: a natural experiment using routine data

No abstract avialable

Enhancing off-site manufacturing through early contractor involvement (ECI) in New Zealand

Procurement strategies that enable early contractor involvement (ECI) in design may enhance off-site manufacturing (OSM) by overcoming previously identified barriers to its uptake. Involving constructors during the design stage can reduce the risk of design buildability issues, and standardising traditionally bespoke ECI processes may help overcome cultural resistance to unfamiliar OSM technology. Following literature review and using case studies, document analysis and legal doctrine, a two-stage ECI conceptual process model for New Zealand is proposed. This was tested and refined following feedback at a conference. The model comprises a first-stage pre-construction contract and a second-stage standard-form construction contract. Key process variables are considered with solutions to provide collaboration and transparency while maintaining competitive fixed pricing across the supply chain. Legal doctrine analysis is used to distinguish between design buildability obligations and design codes compliance. The model contributes towards the development of a standard form for pre-construction contracts

Decentralization and electoral accountability: Incentives, separation and voter welfare

This paper provides a systematic analysis of fiscal decentralization on the quality of government by studying jointly its effects on electoral discipline and selection, in a setting where, realistically, voters only have limited information about fiscal policy in other jurisdictions, ruling out yardstick competition. Fiscal centralization reduces the extent of electoral discipline. as a corrupt (rent-seeking) incumbent can target good behavior only at a "minimum winning coalition" of regions (selective rent-diversion) in order to retain office, but thus makes it more profitable for bad incumbents to pool with good ones, thus increasing the probability of electoral discipline occurring at all. Voters tend to prefer centralization when politicians are low quality i.e. more likely to be corruptible. Centralization with uniform taxes can dominate both unconstrained centralization and decentralization, explaining why uniform taxes are so widely observed. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved