Social investment : a New Zealand policy experiment / edited by Jonathan Boston and Derek Gill.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. The Nature, Origins and Evolution of Social Investment : -- 1. Overview - key issues and themes / Jonathan Boston and Derek Gill -- 2. Defining social investment, Kiwi-style / Killian Destremau and Peter Wilson -- 3. Broader perspectives / Michael Mintrom -- 4. The intertemporal dimension / Jonathan Boston -- 5. Assessing the merits of early intervention / Sarah Hogan -- 6. Challenges for the public management system / Derek Gill -- Part II. The Design and Application of the Social Investment Approach : -- 7. Prediction and social investment / Tim Hughes -- 8. Evidence for social investment What is it and how might we collectively learn to inform decision-making? / Gail Kelly and Isabelle Collins -- 9. Information requirements Understanding in the social investment feedback loop / Amanda Wolf -- 10. Data infrastructure and analytical capability / Simon Wakeman and Diane Garrett -- 11. Implementing social investment Pharmac's experience / Peter Alsop and Steffan Crausaz -- 12. Minding the implementation gap NGO social service delivery and the social investment approach / Jo Cribb -- 13. Policy delivery is risky The administrative and political uncertainty of making policy happen / John Yeabsley -- Part III. Future Directions and Applications : -- 14. The justice sector Opportunities and challenges / Warren Young -- 15. The implications for the education sector / Gary Hawke -- 16. A social investment approach for research funding and impact / Verna Smith, Ben Apted, Holly Briffa and Alex Collie -- Part IV. Critical Perspectives : -- 17. A social democratic critique / Michael Cullen -- 18. Corked wine in a cracked bottle The long-term fiscal redistribution model and recent reforms in the New Zealand welfare state / Simon Chapple -- 19. Social investment in a complex and radically uncertain world / Elizabeth Eppel and Girol Karacaoglu -- 20. Exposing and challenging the underlying assumptions of social investment / David Hanna -- Part V. Concluding Reflections : -- 21. Governance, public policy and public management / Graham Scott

"For almost a decade, the idea of social investment has been a major focus of New Zealand policy-making and policy debate. The broad aim has been to address serious social problems and improve long-term fiscal outcomes by drawing on big data and deploying various analytical techniques to enable more evidence-informed policy interventions. But recent approaches to social investment have been controversial. In late 2017, the new Labour-New Zealand First government announced a review of the previous government's policies. As ideas about social investment evolve, this book brings together leading academics, commentators and policy analysts from the public and private sectors to answer three big questions: How should social investment be defined and conceptualized? How should it be put into practice? In what policy domains can it be most productively applied?."--Back cover.