Social Policy Bonds blog

Environmental policy now seems focused almost exclusively on greenhouse gas emissions. Almost anything that might reduce the net emissions of those gases that are currently thought to be the instigators of global warming is lauded and, indeed, subsid...

Zachary Basu writes about the 'explosion of legalized gambling' in the US, which 'has set the stage for a provocative new frontier in the world of risk-taking — betting markets for everyday events, ranging from Taylor Swift streams to hurricanes hi...

Gideon Rachman asks:What is it that causes some tragedies and conflicts to command the world's attention and others to pass almost unnoticed? The tragedies of Ukraine, Gaza and Israel all get far more attention than wars and humanitarian calamities i...

How do we define 'peace' in such a way it could be meaningfully targeted by such applications of the Social Policy Bond concept as World Peace Bonds or Middle East Peace Bonds? It seems difficult at first. Peace, in the sense of absence of open...

Stephen Bush writes about 'Black Out' nights in the US and UK, which are intended to encourage more black people to attend theatre performances by inviting an 'all-Black-identifying audience'. Mr Bush's opinion about this form of segregation is simil...

The Economist quotes Sir Keir Starmer:Policy churn is the 'single most important reason' for the [UK's] economic malaise. Sir Keir Starmer: bureaucrat first, politician second, the 'Economist', 24 FebruaryThere is some truth there, but what explains...

The Economist writes:[T]he great expansion of higher education has coincided with a productivity slowdown. Whereas in the 1950s and 1960s workers’ output per hour across the rich world rose by 4% a year, in the decade before the covid-19 pandemi...