06 March 2008

Post 500

My 500th post on this blog and time for a free and frank appraisal of where Social Policy Bonds are going. The honest verdict has to be: not very far. At least not that I'm aware of. I don't know of anyone other than me who's working on them, nor any organizations that are thinking about issuing them. I get very few comments on this blog, which together with the main Social Policy Bonds web site get about 15 views daily (excluding RSS feeds and perhaps other views that my hitcounter doesn't register).

There is increasing interest in the value of markets for generating information in prediction markets, or information markets. More catastrophe bonds are being issued. But all these markets differ from Social Policy Bonds in that, while making use the dynamic information of markets to anticipate or insure against events, they don't attempt to modify behaviour. Participants in these markets are active only in the sense that they invest in them. Social Policy Bonds are in contrast designed to reward people for helping achieve society's goals.

The lack of interest is disheartening, but I am currently working on another book about Social Policy Bonds, and hope to have a first draft done in about three months. I intend to continue posting on this blog and maintaining the Social Policy Bonds website.

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