Public Policies Enabling Social Impact Investment Funds: Tax-Credits and Cash Transfers

Abstract

Over the past decade, Social Impact Investing (SII) has garnered increasing attention among public policy makers as a solution for multigenerational, complex, intractable social and environmental problems, or as some advocates like to say, ‘wicked’ problems. The growing interest in SII aligns with the expansion, since the 1980s, of a set of public sector reforms that make use of new public policy instruments to achieve public objectives. Neoliberal economists and New Public Management (NPM) theorists have long argued for these reforms to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government bureaucracies. These reforms have led to a paradigm shift that Lester M. Salamon has labeled ‘New Governance’, characterized by public policies that make use of market mechanisms, partnerships with new actors, networks and flexible rules. Public administration scholars have suggested focusing on public policy instruments instead of the traditional focus on programs and institutions to gain an understanding of the dynamics of the ‘New Governance’ paradigm and to address important questions that go beyond the dimensions of effectiveness and efficiency. This dissertation draws on Lester M. Salamon’s framework for analyzing public policy instruments combined with a conceptual framework developed by the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD). The thesis uses this framework to assess the SII market by examining three cases of Canadian federal public policy instruments designed and implemented to achieve socio-economic objectives. These policy instruments provide either a cash transfer or a tax incentive to create investment funds mandated to invest with a purpose of making a return and achieving a positive social outcome. The dissertation employs a qualitative research approach and case study method to explore questions of equity and effectiveness to produce findings and recommendations useful to pubic administration scholars who focus their research on public policy instruments and to public policy makers who are considering policy options for structuring and growing the SII market. Data was collected through an extensive document review and 19 semistructured interviews. A dimensional analysis, SII analysis and discourse analysis of the data were undertaken. The researcher made the choice of undertaking a discourse analysis in order to fill a gap in the public policy instrument literature and inform the debate on SII. This dissertation contributes to the body of knowledge on public policy instruments and SII by presenting the results of a comparative analysis of three public policy instruments that created investment funds mandated to produce socio-economic outcomes.