Social Investment Funds in Sweden: Status and Design Issues

Authors

  • Lars Hultkrantz School of Business, Örebro University
  • Elin Vimefall School of Business, Örebro University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v21i3.11572

Keywords:

Social investments, Investing in children, Cost-benefit analysis, Social impact bonds, Municipalities

Abstract

Long-term investments in individual and social human capital such as preschool, school, family support, early-intervention for youth at risk and other programmes that are part of the welfare services provided by local government in Sweden are generally managed with one-year-ahead budget planning. In the light of criticism that the resulting resource alloca- tion is biased due to short-sightedness, silo mentality and risk aversion, in recent years more than a fifth of Swedish municipalities have established “social investment funds” for pro- moting investment and innovation views on such measures. This article provides a background on the motives and current status of these funds at the national level and describes in more detail the design and project funding in two cases. Two critical design issues are discussed; whether investment returns should be paid back to the fund and whether assess- ment should be made of societal benefits other than costs avoided.

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Author Biographies

Lars Hultkrantz, School of Business, Örebro University

Lars Hultkrantz is Professor of Economics. He has done research in applied microeconomics in several policy fields. A common denominator has been methods for benefit-cost analysis (BCA). He has been scientific advisor to the BCA guidelines in Sweden and Norway. He is a member of the Expert Group on Public Economics (ESO) at the Ministry of Finance.

Elin Vimefall, School of Business, Örebro University

Elin Vimefall is a lecturer in economics. Her main research interest is in evaluating early intervention for children from a societal perspective and in development economics with a focus on gender aspects and investments in children.

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Published

2017-09-15

How to Cite

Hultkrantz, L., & Vimefall, E. (2017). Social Investment Funds in Sweden: Status and Design Issues. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 21(3), 85–107. https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v21i3.11572

Issue

Section

Original Articles

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