Social Investment Productivity And Poverty

This book argues with examples that absolute poverty is not an inevitable consequence of economic growth, that equitable economic growth is necessary to secure the eradication of poverty, and that the benefits of economic growth need to be invested in developing socio-political structures that can foster sustainable democracy and accountability

This book contributes to the growing literature on social investment by discussing the way social investment ideas have been adopted in different countries and in various academic and professional fields, including social policy, development studies and non-profit management. Documenting the experience of implementing social investment in different communities, it encourages a One World perspective that integrates these diverse experiences and promotes policy learning between different nations.

As neoliberalism begins to reach its limits, and the new landscape of social and public policy that it has left in its wake becomes clearer, there is a great need to define and explain the new roles that social policy, non-governmental organizations, and citizens are taking on. In this book, internationally renowned contributors provide a sustained analysis of this new landscape, reframing social and public policy and bringing in the latest thinking on social investment and inclusive growth on a global scale. Scholars and practitioners working in development, human geography, politics, and international political economy will all need this book as they look at what's to come.

This study of the theory and practice of professional social investment offers a conceptual foundation for investment policy and research and reviews empirical studies supporting new directions in investment policies.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

The Uses of Social Investment provides the first study of the welfare state, under the new post-crisis austerity context and associated crisis management politics, to take stock of the limits and potential of social investment. It surveys the emergence, diffusion, limits, merits, and politics of social investment as the welfare policy paradigm for the 21st century, seen through the lens of the life-course contingencies of the competitive knowledge economy and modern family-hood. Featuring contributions from leading scholars in the field, the volume revisits the intellectual roots and normative foundations of social investment, surveys the criticisms that have leveled against the social investment perspective in theory and policy practice, and presents empirical evidence of social investment progress together with novel research methodologies for assessing socioeconomic 'rates of return' on social investment. Given the progressive, admittedly uneven, diffusion of the social investment policy priorities across the globe, the volume seeks to address the pressing political question as to whether the social investment turn is able to withstand the fiscal austerity backlash that has re-emerged in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.