Description
Calculative Ethics examines social and development impact bonds as a form of ethical finance that adopts a fact-centred approach to addressing social ills. Impact bonds are shown to recast benevolent investing through evidence-based governing, tying investor returns to demonstrated positive social outcomes in domains such as health and education. The book argues that this logic of fact-based financing is increasingly institutionalised, reshaping investment and donor practices across ethical and development finance. Drawing on three case studies-addressing homelessness and chronic illness in the UK, and educational outcomes for girls and boys in India-Calculative Ethics traces how impact bonds bring together financial tools, scientific evaluation methods (such as randomised controlled trials), and performance management into programmatic responses to poverty-related issues. Rather than simply advancing financial interests under an ethical banner, impact bonds are shown to reconfigure both finance and ethics. They give rise to a calculative reasoning in which investments are organised around numerical evidence of improved well-being of vulnerable populations. The book argues that this reveals more complex power configurations than marketisation accounts typically suggest, while also interrogating the conceptual and political issues that emerge when `facts' become the organising principle of ethical investing. Calculative Ethics will appeal to scholars and students of international political economy- particularly those studying ethical finance and the financialisation of welfare and development-as well as researchers in economic sociology, public policy, development studies, and human geography.
Binding: Hardback
Binding: Hardback