Social Impact Bonds and Institutional Investors: An Empirical Analysis of a Complicated Relationship

Abstract

Over the past 8 years, social impact bonds (SIBs) have attracted increasing attention from scholars, policy makers, and investors. Notwithstanding good intentions and policy makers’ enthusiasm, SIBs have failed to attract significant private capital. Considering the SIBs issued worldwide until December 2017, we look for the critical success factors of SIB funding by investigating both the financial and contractual characteristics of SIB contracts. We find that institutional investors are more likely to participate in an SIB funding when there are fewer agency problems.