In a comment section at Tim Lambert's weblog, I came across Ronnie Horesh and his ideas about Social Policy Bonds. It's an interesting market-based approach to solving problems.
It's kind of inspiring: He has a novel social idea, he develops it and devotes a lot of effort to promoting it. As some may recall, I've had a social idea myself, but it never left the drawing board, so it's great so see someone that went a step further.
He deserves more feedback, though, so I'm discussing it with him at his blog right now. My current objection is that it may be expensive to pay out actors who profit in an anti-social way from a problem (but we'll see what he writes).
For problems that arise not out of someone's ill will, but more as a result of unfortunate circumstances, I think the bonds may be a very good idea. Horesh mentions reducing female illiteracy in afghanistan as an example, and wouldn't it be great if someone experimented with that?
Posted by vintermann at January 31, 2006 12:00 PM