Despite the general hype, Social Impact Bonds’ (SIB) rate of adoption is still modest. The mismatch between widespread interest and actual adoption raises interesting questions as to whether we are still in the early adoption phase of SIBs and massive diffusion is yet to come, or we are observing a marginal phenomenon. In order to shed some light on this issue, the paper provides a review of the cases in which the SIB model has been already applied, exploring the specific configuration employed, with the purpose to identify regular configuration patterns and their deviation from a prototypical structure

This paper performs a critical analysis of the financial instruments that can be employed to fund social innovation,\ud with a specific focus on social tech start-ups that develop and deploy technology-driven solutions to\ud address social needs in a financially sustainable manner. The paper analyses how these start-ups can access\ud financing, the barriers to financing that these organisations experience and the financial instruments that are\ud most suitable to address their financial needs. Social tech start-ups have many points of overlap with high-tech\ud start-ups in terms of the barriers they encounter to financing in different lifecycle stages. Still, the institutional\ud solutions that are commonly exploited by high-tech start-ups for growth are not enough to support social tech\ud start-ups to scale. Therefore, we introduce the concept of SII and discuss its potential contribution to the social\ud tech finance landscape. Then, using the case of social tech start-ups as paradigmatic of the broader problem of\ud financing mechanisms for social innovation, we formulate a research agenda, including directions for research\ud and theoretical development in the field of SII

This paper aims to perform a review of different accounting frameworks, including indicators and metrics applicable to the social business sector, discussing the strengths and the weaknesses of different approaches in relationship to their ability to respond to objectives and interests of different stakeholders in the social business ecosystem. Then, the paper discusses the key role that indicators and metrics could play in the light of the transformations that the social business sector is witnessing, such as the emergence of new financial supply chains and the entrance of new relevant players

Purpose: the aim of this paper is to develop an interpretative framework of the evolution of Social Impact Investment (SII) in different countries. SII is a strategy of asset allocation, which combines financial profitability with a measurable social and environmental impact. Methodology: through a thematic analysis of 75 documents, i.e. reports, experts' considerations, reflections on practitioners' experience, meetings' minutes, written by the SII Taskforce of the Group of Eight and the relative National Advisory Boards, we identify the main themes connected to the topic of SII development and recognize four main elements useful to segment the market, namely information asymmetry, financial instruments, source of capital and market intermediation. Findings: they map the ongoing practices in the Group of Eight's members and distinguish two speeds in the evolution of SII: on one hand, there is a group of road runners, which pave the way to SII and in which SII activities have being institutionalized; on the other hand, there is a wider group of chasers, where the SII infrastructures lack any systematization. Originality: even if some authors have provided preliminary interpretations of the SII evolution, they mainly focus on national level, and do not provide any crosscountries analysis. The findings of the present work contribute to overcome the lack of evidence characterizing the SII field and the absence of comparable and consistent data at global level by filling the academic literature about SII, through a structured interpretative framework.

This article discusses the viability of social impact bonds (SIBs) in Italy. Over the past few years, SIBs have been promoted as new form of privatepublic partnership (PPP) to finance social programmes (Jackson, 2013). SIBs are not conventional bonds (Warner, 2013); they are hybrid tools with elements of either equity or debt, aimed at supporting preventative interventions through a pay-by-results contract (Liebman and Sellman, 2013). Investors, through a financial intermediary, pay for a given social service which a government considers a priority. If the service achieves the social goals agreed upfront, the government will remunerate the investors; if not, they lose their investment. The best-known SIB is the UK's Peterborough Prison SIB, which was launched in 2010 by Social Finance. The target in this case was to reduce the recidivism rate among exoffenders by 10% over a five-year period. If these performance goals are reached, the savings achieved in terms of reincarceration will be used to pay back the investors with a rate of return. If not, the investors will lose some or all of their money.

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