Capital and the Common Good: How Innovative Finance Is Tackling the World's Most Urgent Problems

by Georgia Levenson Keohane

Despite social and economic advances around the world, poverty and disease persist, exacerbated by the mounting challenges of climate change, natural disasters, political conflict, mass migration, and economic inequality. While governments commit to addressing these challenges, traditional public and philanthropic dollars are not enough. Here, innovative finance has shown a way by borrowing techniques from the world of finance, we can raise capital for social investments today. Innovative finance has provided polio vaccines to children in the DRC, crop insurance to farmers in India, pay-as-you-go solar electricity to Kenyans, and affordable housing and transportation to New Yorkers. It has helped governmental, commercial, and philanthropic resources meet the needs of the poor and underserved and build a more sustainable and inclusive prosperity.

Capital and the Common Good shows how market failure in one context can be solved with market solutions from an expert in securitization bundles future development aid into bonds to pay for vaccines today; an entrepreneur turns a mobile phone into an array of financial services for the unbanked; and policy makers adapt pay-for-success models from the world of infrastructure to human services like early childhood education, maternal health, and job training. Revisiting the successes and missteps of these efforts, Georgia Levenson Keohane argues that innovative finance is as much about incentives and sound decision-making as it is about money. When it works, innovative finance gives us the tools, motivation, and security to invest in our shared future.

Genres: Finance, Business, Economics

264 pages, Hardcover

Published September 27, 2016

About the author

Georgia Levenson Keohane is a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, where she works on a range of issues in economic policy, including poverty and inequality, employment and job growth, and social entrepreneurship and the role of firms in society. Keohane's career has bridged the private and nonprofit sectors. A former McKinsey consultant and foundation executive, she advises a number of organizations including philanthropies, educational entities, community development agencies, and think tanks. She has taught at Yale, and is an adjunct professor in the Social Enterprise Program at Columbia Business School. Keohane writes regularly on social and economic policy and the intersection of business and society for the Harvard Business Review, The Nation, The American Prospect, The Washington Monthly, Slate, and other publications. Keohane holds a BA from Yale University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an MSc from London School of Economics, where she was a Fulbright Scholar.

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, introduced me to some ideas and concepts that were new to me. The overall concept of designing new financial approaches to solving societal problems seems obviously powerful, and it was interesting to read the examples. A bit repetitive and could have been a considerably shorter and better book with more aggressive editing.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

The phrase “innovative finance” tends to put this reviewer on the back foot, perhaps knowing how some of the most-recent financial crashes and catastrophes have had “innovative finance” somewhere towards its centre as “innovative” is often a synonym for “novel” or “hard-to-understand”. US Mortgage crisis anyone? Yet this book claims to highlight how innovative finance can help tackle and fund some of the world’s most urgent problems, such as polio vaccines to children in the DRC and pay-as-you-go solar electricity to Kenya.

Luckily this book is different, there are positives at the end of the tunnel. The author notes that traditional charitable and philanthropic routes to finance are not sufficient, so government and commercial funding must enter the mix and do more than pontificate around grand-sounding agreements and goals launched with a fanfare in a five-star hotel or similar luxurious environment.

At the core of the book is an examination of how development funding or aid can be “converted” into bonds sold on the open market that can provide help today, assisted by motivation, mutual interest and a general wish to do good and look beyond the traditional financial instrument. It is a bit of a specialist read, hard-going at times, but interesting and thought provoking nonetheless. A general reader must be forgiven for skipping ahead at times or letting a lot of the text wash over them.

Autamme.com

[Lilian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am glad that I have finally gotten to finish this book. Though I felt like I skimmed through the last few pages. Keohane presents the case for innovative finance in a very digestible manner and backs up her arguments with plenty of current case studies both from the developed and developing countries.
I have to admit that I was pretty excited to see very relatable examples such as Mpesa and Kiva educational loans for Strathmore University students.

Overall, I think that it was a pleasant read which I will keep referring to over and over again.
This book would be perfect for anyone interested in Development Finance and Economics 101.

[Mills College Library]

174.4 K379 2016