Social impact measurement: What can impact investment practices and the policy evaluation paradigm learn from each other?

In the past decade, public authorities around the world have fostered an increasing interest for social enterprises and the ways to develop and scale them. Part of this interest has focused on better understanding social enterprises’ impact, especially through practices derived from impact investing and philanthropy such as social impact measurement (SIM). This paper looks at the differences between “traditional” policy (or programme evaluation - PE) as it is carried out by public actors and SIM as it is practiced by impact investors and the stakeholders they support (particularly social enterprises), focusing on what can be learnt from these gaps. We take the case of France, where we compare public praxis for both SIM and PE based on a documentary analysis and complementary interviews. We find that both disciplines are bridged by a common theoretical foundation and, to a certain extent, by participative approaches. We also identify three main gaps, which are (i) the way outcomes are treated in PE and SIM; (ii) how stakeholder participation is managed and how it affects the ownership of the evaluation process by the involved parties; and (iii) how metrics and indicators are approached. We assess the benefits and drawbacks associated with each gap, we determine ways to bridge them and we identify five forces contributing to their creation.     

加强农民工社会保障政策执行力研究——基于利益博弈的视角

在改革开放和体制转轨时期,利益结构由过去高度的整体化、单一化向分散化、多元化转变,激发了各参与主体的利益意识。农民工社会保障作为社保领域的重要方面,在执行上却处于举步维艰的境地,其根本原因在于政策参与者的利益博弈。本文以＂理性经济人＂和＂资源稀缺＂为假设前提,从博弈的角度探究各竞赛者的利益价值取向,从而提高农民工社会保障的操作性和贯彻力。     

发达国家解决中小企业融资难题的主要模式及借鉴意义

解决中小企业融资难问题必须以政府为核心,在突破现有政策的基础上,通过制度创新重新制定整体方案.其核心内容包括:建立以中央政府为核心,各级政府和企业参与的多层次社会的中小企业信用担保体系;深化中小企业改革,建立和完善中小企业法人治理结构和信用体系;深化金融体制改革,在引进国内外战略投资者的同时,通过对现有城市商业银行的重组,设立以中小企业服务为核心的中小企业银行;加快资本市场的制度创新,推出创业板市场,在增加中小企业对风险投资吸引力的同时,使更多合格的中小企业进入资本市场,打通中小企业的直接融资渠道.     

社会信用、刚兑信仰与地方政府隐性债务

防范化解地方政府隐性债务风险是当前我国亟待解决的重要问题。本文基于2007年至2019年293个地级市面板数据,研究社会信用对地方政府隐性债务的影响。我们发现:(1)社会信用下滑会导致地方政府隐性债务规模提高和融资成本上升。(2)社会信用通过影响市场金融资源供给和政府债务需求进而影响隐性债务规模与融资成本,但上述机制在有无“刚兑信仰”情境下存在差异。(3)对比新《预算法》和“43号文”出台前后社会信用对隐性债务影响的异质性发现,债务管制显著提高了融资平台的市场化程度。虽然政策前期金融市场更多呈现出一种观望态度,但违约事件打破了金融市场对地方政府隐性债务的“刚兑信仰”,隐性债务发行受到的市场约束力度显著增强。本文对更好地认识地方政府隐性债务风险、理解当前债务治理措施的有效性以及未来如何通过完善社会信用体系建设化解地方政府隐性债务风险具有启示意义。     

公平与效率的均衡模型探讨

公平主要指经济领域中，不同利益主体在财富或收入分配上的平等制度。效率指在资源的有效配置，即帕累托最优状态下，社会经济生产总值的有效增长。通过构建公平与效率的理论模型，分析不同因素的变化对公平与效率均衡的影响和社会福利最佳均衡点的选择。提出构建和谐社会中，公平与效率的“度”的把握对策。     

Promoting Entrepreneurship at the Base of the Social Pyramid via Pricing Systems: A case Study

Historically, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have played a significant social role by helping people at the base of the socio‐economic pyramid escape from social exclusion through the creation of microenterprises. However, international banks have recently started competing in the microfinance sector. In this adverse environment, MFI management tools should be more innovative and technologically advanced to increase efficiency, solvency and profitability and to compete with commercial banks on equal terms. This study therefore strives to develop a credit‐risk management tool based on a multilayer perceptron (MLP) credit‐scoring model for a Peruvian MFI, and to calculate the capital requirements and microcredit pricing on both internal ratings‐based (IRB) and standardized approaches, analysing the impact of these models on the management of the MFI. Our findings show that the implementation of an IRB approach with default probabilities obtained from an MLP credit‐scoring model produces the best benefit by the MFIs in terms of higher accuracy (reduction of misclassification costs by 13.78%), lower capital requirements (in the range of 8.5–78%) and the best risk‐adjusted interest rates. Furthermore, with the establishment of interest rates adjusted to the real risk of each client, MFIs are fairer and more socially engaged by preventing economically viable low‐risk projects from becoming unviable due to excessive interest rates. This leads to the creation of more small businesses by people from the base of the socio‐economic pyramid and greater economic development and social cohesion. The IRB model should therefore be implemented to improve MFI solvency, profitability, efficiency, survival, management and social performance.     

实现利益冲突向利益和谐转化统领社会主义和谐社会的构建

每一个社会的经济关系首先是作为利益关系表现出来的,所以利益问题是一个涉及社会生活全局性的问题.利益关系是人类一切社会发展的基础,人们所奋斗的一切归根到底都与其利益相关.协调的利益关系是和谐的基础.因此,在构建社会主义和谐社会的过程中,须调节利益关系,以利益冲突向利益和谐转化统领社会主义和谐社会的构建.     

PERSPECTIVES ON MANAGEMENT CONTROL IN A MULTIPLE AGENCY, COMMUNITY SERVICE

This paper reports on an interpretive study of organisational control in a developing, community based, psychogeriatric service. The service was characterised by its complexity comprising a diversity of interest groups and a multiplicity of agencies. There were distinct differences in performance as perceived by the various interest, or stakeholder, groups; resulting in multiple control systems. Performance as measured by the management control system was found to be, at best, only partial. It was, therefore, of limited use in controlling existing service provision and developing new services. A case is made for recognition of these complexities when designing organisational control systems in such environments.     

Sustainability reporting by Australian public sector organisations: Why they report

Recent research on social and environmental (SE) reporting has focused on corporations, rather than public sector agencies. Also, there has been little interest in ascertaining the views of preparers of accounts regarding SE reporting. This study analysed why a group of “better practice” organisations reported on SE matters. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with key preparers in the various organisations and found that their reporting was informed by the latest GRI and aimed at mostly internal stakeholders. The annual report was only one of the media used for disclosure and adoption was driven by a key individual in the organisation.     

Prospects for the future: Community supported agriculture in Hungary

Alternative food supply systems have been a subject of increasing interest for many decades in various perspectives of food and agriculture studies. This paper contributes to the discussion by examining how farmer led Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement in Hungary creates an alternative in the dominant food regime. To examine CSAs future potentials, semi-structured interviews with producers, consumers-members, and experts, a consumer-member survey, and secondary data sources were utilized. We analyse ambiguities or uncertainties of production, logistics, economic viability, and community formation to sort out social and material practices that co-produce goods and values centred on sustainability. We conclude that CSAs create open and democratic spaces of active and direct producer-consumer cooperation and thus present a model for rethinking our food system. However the scaling up of these experiences is the main challenge today.     

金融监管公共利益理论及其质疑

金融监管公共利益理论认为现代经济不存在纯粹的市场经济,自由竞争的市场机制不能带来资源的最优配置,甚至造成资源的浪费和社会福利损失,因而肯定政府干预的合理性和有效性。既然监管目标是合理的,那么监管实施的结果应让大多数社会成员满意,可是,事实上一些监管实施的结果只让那些受益于监管的人们满意,监管机构面临的任务很难完成甚至不可能完成;市场理论能令人信服地解释社会资源通过个人追求私利的交易活动得到有效配置的机制,而与之相对的金融监管公共利益理论却无法描绘公共利益得以实现的具体途径。     

Why do firms disclose and not disclose structural intangibles?

This study conducts 22 interviews with the directors of 11 firms chosen from the top 30 listed firms by market capital on the Colombo Stock Exchange, with each firm representing an industry. The interviews explore senior executives' views about disclosing the structural intangibles in annual reports to attract financial investments. The study identifies 20 intangible resources in 10 intangible classes. It analyzes the interview data using latent thematic analysis and explores them as responses to social, political, and economic interest groups. Corroborating interview data with annual report data, this study identifies five broad reasons for disclosure and non-disclosure. Build empathy, show they are good corporate citizens, win government support, and build confidence are about disclosure, and divert attention from issues at hand is about non-disclosure. This study finds that disclosure results in managing legitimacy of the social and political interest groups, and also in managing impressions of the economic interest group. Non-disclosure results in managing impressions of the social and political interest groups. The findings contribute to building an evidence-led theoretical connection to understand the structural intangibles disclosed and not disclosed to attract financial investment to firms.     

Accounting in its social context: Towards a history of value added in the United Kingdom

Although the relationship between accounting and society has been posited frequently, it has been subjected to little systematic analysis. This paper reviews some existing theories of the social nature of accounting practice and, by so doing, identifies a number of significant conceptual problems. Using the case of the rise of interest in value added accounting in the United Kingdom in the 1970s, the paper conducts a social analysis of this particular event and then seeks to draw out the theoretical issues and problems which emerge from this exercise. Finally, the implications of these for the social analysis of accounting are discussed.     

A new paradigm for risk analysis

A novel paradigm for risk analysis is proposed and illustrated. The rationale is to engage with five self-evident observations about the nature of risk that have as yet been insufficiently absorbed within current risk paradigms. The five observations are: (1) that people's knowledge is what determines the way they perceive, define and assess risk issues; (2) that risk issues are a combination of physical and social qualities and properties; (3) that risk issues are pervaded by uncertainty and crises of trust; (4) that risk issues are intrinsically dynamic, changing in profile over time and across geographical and cultural space; (5) that the effectiveness of risk management interventions rests on the quality of the knowledge (scientific and social) on which they are based, and on the internal congruence of that knowledge. Complementary elements of a proposed meta-theory of risk (a new risk paradigm) are set out below with respect to each of these five aspects in turn. The paper is offered as a stimulus to think about the possible existence of a unified paradigm that can span all the various spheres of interest of risk analysis, and as a specific proposal for the possible nature and scope of such a paradigm.     

Identifying the dynamics of real interest rates and inflation: evidence using survey data

In the context of an equilibrium asset-pricing model, the dynamicsof the instantaneous real interest rate and the instantaneousrate of expected inflation are estimated. Unlike previous models,we allow real interest rates and inflation to be mutually dependentprocesses. The model is estimated as a state-space system thatincludes observations on various maturity Treasury bills andNBER-ASA survey forecasts of inflation. Over the period 1968-1988,we find evidence that instantaneous real interest rates andexpected inflation are significantly negatively correlated.Real interest rates also display greater volatility and weakermean reversion than expected inflation.     

论公司慈善捐赠中董事的忠实与勤勉义务

妥当定位公司慈善捐赠中董事的行为规则,是解决公司慈善捐赠活动中各种利益冲突的关键.客观上公司慈善捐赠会增进社会公共利益,但董事决策公司慈善捐赠的行为目标却应该与董事在公司治理中的职责相一致,即促进公司利益最大化.公司慈善捐赠中董事需对公司承担忠实义务和勤勉义务,以公司利益为自己的行为准则,竭力通过捐赠促进公司长期与短期利益的最大化.     

Why Do Politicians Intervene in Accounting Regulation? The Role of Ideology and Special Interests

Politicians frequently intervene in the regulation of financial accounting. Evidence from the accounting literature shows that regulatory capture by special interests helps explain these interventions. However, many accounting rules have broad economic or social consequences, such as their effects on income distribution or private sector subsidies. The perception of these consequences varies with a politician's ideology. Therefore, if accounting rules produce those consequences, ideology plausibly spills over and explains a politician's stance on the technical accounting issue, beyond special interest pressure. We use two prominent U.S. political debates about fair value accounting and the expensing of employee stock options to disentangle the role of ideology from special interest pressure. In both debates, ideology explains politicians’ involvement at exactly those points when the debate focuses on the economic consequences of accounting regulation (i.e., bank bailouts and top management compensation). Once the debates focus on more technical issues, connections to special interests remain the dominant force.     

汇率变动与就业关系研究——来自中国的经验证据

本文借鉴跨期最优代理人模型,分析了人民币实际有效汇率、工资以及贷款利率与社会就业量之间的关系。本文的研究表明人民币实际有效汇率和贷款利率均为社会就业水平的重要影响因素,而工资水平对就业的影响相对较小。总体而言,人民币实际有效汇率变动对就业将产生负面冲击,利率变化主要通过通货膨胀效应和成本效应作用于社会就业水平。此外,本文分阶段考察了汇率与就业之间的关系。结论表明自1995Q1至2002Q1之间,人民币实际有效汇率升值通过收入效应与贸易收支收入抑制了社会就业;之后,人民币实际有效汇率主要通过资本品价格效应作用于就业,人民币实际有效汇率升值促进了社会就业水平的提高,相反,贬值反而降低了社会就业水平。     

Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder governance around the world

This paper examines the impact of stakeholder governance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) to determine whether CSR is employed as a mechanism to mitigate conflicts of interest between managers and diverse stakeholders, or used as managerial perquisites. To examine this relation properly, we not only employ an extensive sample of international firms, but also mitigate endogeneity by using various econometric methods. We find that stakeholder governance positively influences firms' CSR engagement with a greater magnitude than board governance after controlling for confounding factors. Stakeholders' influence in CSR engagement is more pronounced when investor protections and board governance are relatively weak.     

What do we learn from ratings about corporate social responsibility? New evidence of uninformative ratings

The rise of investments professionally managed with a socially responsible mandate has generated growing interest in environmental and social ratings. However, it is not clear how informative these ratings are or whether they are distorted by greenwashing. Based on the ratings of the leading provider, I offer the first evidence linking greenwashing to ratings inflation. Better ratings do not predict less future corporate bad behavior. This is of concern because it undermines the signaling value of these ratings. To understand these results, I develop a model where the rating agency may underinvest in greenwashing detection while firms have incentives to window dress and engage in greenwashing. Finally, controlling for greenwashing improves ratings predictive quality.