IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/pubmmg/v39y2019i7p458-467.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Walking the contractual tightrope: a transaction cost economics perspective on social impact bonds

Author

Listed:
  • Clare FitzGerald
  • Eleanor Carter
  • Ruth Dixon
  • Mara Airoldi

Abstract

Transaction cost economics is applied in this paper to social impact bonds to explore how public service commissioners could improve outcomes-based contracts. The authors supply a framework for assessing the quality of outcomes specifications and clarify the trade-off between a robust value case for government and the transaction costs associated with specifying such a deal. Illustrated by two examples, the authors suggest that commissioners aim for a ‘requisite’ contract: one that minimizes opportunism while balancing the costs of developing a more robust outcomes specification.Policy-makers and managers are increasingly looking to outcomes-based contracts, including social impact bonds, as a way to improve social outcomes. The success of these contracts is predicated on how well-specified the outcomes are within them. This paper provides practitioners with an easy-to-use framework for assessing outcomes specifications. They need to consider the definition of the eligible cohort; the alignment of payable outcomes to the policy intent; and the accuracy of prices for attributable outcomes. Practitioners should aim for a ‘requisite’ contract—a contract that minimizes service provider and investor opportunism while balancing the costs associated with developing a more robust outcomes specification.

Suggested Citation

  • Clare FitzGerald & Eleanor Carter & Ruth Dixon & Mara Airoldi, 2019. "Walking the contractual tightrope: a transaction cost economics perspective on social impact bonds," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(7), pages 458-467, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:pubmmg:v:39:y:2019:i:7:p:458-467
    DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2019.1583889
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09540962.2019.1583889
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09540962.2019.1583889?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rosella Carè & Francesco Rania & Riccardo De Lisa, 2020. "Critical Success Factors, Motivations, and Risks in Social Impact Bonds," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-17, September.
    2. Francesco Rania & Annarita Trotta & Rosella Carè & Maria Cristina Migliazza & Abdellah Kabli, 2020. "Social Uncertainty Evaluation of Social Impact Bonds: A Model and Practical Application," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-34, May.
    3. Eleonora Broccardo & Maria Mazzuca & Maria Laura Frigotto, 2020. "Social impact bonds: The evolution of research and a review of the academic literature," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(3), pages 1316-1332, May.
    4. Rosella Carè & Riccardo De Lisa, 2019. "Social Impact Bonds for a Sustainable Welfare State: The Role of Enabling Factors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-23, May.
    5. Mads Roke Clausen, 2023. "Transaction Costs in Voluntary Social Organisations," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(4), pages 1-35, April.
    6. Rosella Carè & Stella Carè & Nathalie Lévy & Rabia Fatima, 2023. "Missing finance in social impact bond research? A bibliometric overview between past and future research," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(5), pages 2101-2120, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:pubmmg:v:39:y:2019:i:7:p:458-467. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RPMM20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.