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Why have housing reforms failed to achieve the desired improvements in housing in the Philippines? A review of trends in government housing strategies shows that while many problems in housing are linked to institutional barriers in the land and financial markets, government reforms focused on operational and program specific issues. While these reforms may be needed, they can only be effective if basic institutional issues are first addressed. The paper suggests that the efficient functioning of the land and financial markets is a necessary condition for the efficient functioning of the housing market. This requires government to undertake major reforms in land regulations and land administration infrastructure including the implementation of an effective real property tax system. On housing finance, government should re-adopt the financial reform concept developed in 1997 with assistance from the World Bank that calls for a clear separation of subsidy mechanisms from transactions in housing finance and to take initial steps to reduce subsidy that goes to high and middle-income housing markets. These reforms would also warrant reforms in the governance structure of housing delivery. Complete devolution of housing delivery functions to the local government is necessary. On the other hand, national government concerns will primarily be on providing the policy environment and housing subsidy management. These concerns may only require the creation of a corporate organization rather than a Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This article provides a study of corporate control in a general equilibrium framework for production economies. When markets are incomplete, trading assets does not allow agents to fully resolve their conflict of interest: at the market equilibrium, shareholders disagree on the way to evaluate production plans which ly outside the market span, and the objective function of the firm is not well defined. Two ways of resolving these conflicts are compared here. The first one (see, e.g., Dr'eze (1974) and Grossman & Hart (1979)) relies on sidepayments between shareholders. The second one (see, e.g., Dr'eze (1985) and DeMarzo (1993)) relies on majority voting in the assembly of shareholders: a stable production plan is one which cannot be overruled by a majority of shareholders. Since voting occurs in a multi-dimensional setup, super majority rules are needed to ensure existence of such 'political' equilibria. The most interesting equilibria are those which are stable with respect to the super majority rule with smallest rate. The present paper provides a framework where these two approaches yield the same equilibria.

This article provides a study of corporate control in a general equilibrium framework for production economies. When markets are incomplete, trading assets does not allow agents to fully resolve their conflict of interest: at the market equilibrium, shareholders disagree on the way to evaluate production plans which ly outside the market span, and the objective function of the firm is not well defined. Two ways of resolving these conflicts are compared here. The first one (see, e.g., Dr'eze (1974) and Grossman & Hart (1979)) relies on sidepayments between shareholders. The second one (see, e.g., Dr'eze (1985) and DeMarzo (1993)) relies on majority voting in the assembly of shareholders: a stable production plan is one which cannot be overruled by a majority of shareholders. Since voting occurs in a multi-dimensional setup, super majority rules are needed to ensure existence of such 'political' equilibria. The most interesting equilibria are those which are stable with respect to the super majority rule with smallest rate. The present paper provides a framework where these two approaches yield the same equilibria.

Educational policies in the face of globalization : whither the nation-state? / Martin Carnoy -- World society and the globalization of educational policy / Francisco O. Ramirez, John W. Meyer, and Julia Lerch -- The global diffusion of education privatization : unpacking and theorizing policy adoption / Antoni Verger -- Economic growth in developing countries : the role of human capital / Eric Hanushek -- Education, poverty and the 'missing link' : the limits of human capital theory as a paradigm for poverty reduction / Xavier Bonal -- Gender and education in the global polity / Elaine Unterhalter -- The global educational reform movement and its impact on schooling / Pasi Sahlberg -- Global convergence or path dependency? : skill formation regimes in the globalized economy / Marius R. Busemeyer and Janis Vossiek -- Education and social cohesion : a panglossian global discourse / Andy Green and Jan Germen Janmaat -- Policies for education in conflict and post-conflict reconstruction / Sarah Dryden-Peterson -- Human rights and education policy in South Asia / Monisha Bajaj and Huma Kidwai -- Early childhood education and care in global discourses / Rianne Mahon -- Education for all 2000-2015 : the influence of global interventions and aid on EFA achievements / Aaron Benavot, Manos Antoninis, Nicole Bella, Marco Delprato, Joanna Harma, Catherine Jere, Priyadarshani Joshi, Nihan KoseleCi Blanchy, Helen Longlands, Alasdair McWilliam, David Post and Asma Zubairi -- The politics of language in education in a global polity / M. Obaidul Hamid -- The global governance of teachers' work / Susan L. Robertson -- The global construction of higher education reform / Simon Marginson -- The historical evolution and current challenges of the United Nations and global education policy-making / Francine Menashy and Caroline Manion -- The World Bank and the global governance of education in a changing world order / Karen Mundy and Antoni Verger -- The changing organizational and global significance of the OECD's education work / Bob Lingard and Sam Sellar -- The policies that shaped PISA, and the policies that PISA shaped / Andreas Schleicher and Pablo Zoido -- Dragon and the tiger cubs : China-ASEAN relations in higher education / Rui Yang and Jingyun Yao -- An analysis of power in transnational advocacy in education / Ian Macpherson -- The business case for transnational corporate participation, profits, and policy making in education / Zahra Bhanji -- New global philanthropy in education and philanthropic governance in education in a post-2015 world / Prachi Srivastava and Lianna Baur -- Rational intentions and unintended consequences : on the interplay between international and national actors in education policy / Timm Fulge, Tonia Bieber, and Kerstin Martens -- Policy and administration as culture : organizational sociology and global and cross-national educational trends / Patricia Bromley -- Ethnography and the localization of global education policy / Amy Stambach -- Global education policy and the postmodern challenge / Stephen Carney -- Policy reponses to the rise of Asian higher education : a postcolonial analysis / Fazal Rizvi -- Joined-up policy : network connectivity and global education governance / Carolina Junemann, Stephen J. Ball and Diego Santori -- A vertical case study of global policy-making : early grade literacy in Zambia / Lesley Bartlett and Frances Vavrus -- Global indicators and local problem recognition : an exploration into the statistical eradication of teacher shortage in the post-socialist region / Gita Steiner-Khamsi.

This report on observance of standards and codes in accounting and auditing (ROSC A & A) provides an assessment of accounting, financial reporting, and auditing requirements and practices within the enterprise and financial sectors of Serbia and sets forth areas of consideration with a view to improving the country's institutional environment for corporate financial reporting. To assess Serbia's compliance with standards and codes, this report uses international benchmarks of good practice, including international financial reporting standards (IFRS), international standards on auditing (ISA), the statements of membership obligations (SMO) of the international federation of accountants (IFAC), and - because Serbia is seeking accession to the European Union (EU) - relevant provisions of the EU acquis communautaire (the acquis) governing financial reporting. The assessment focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the A and A environment that influence the quality of corporate financial reporting, and includes a review of both statutory requirements and actual practice. It updates an earlier assessment published in 2005. ROSC A and A assess accounting and auditing practices in participating countries.

The organization, management, and production of urban space through digital information and communication technologies have become a central means for governing urban life. To overcome a lack of citizen-centered practices in today's smart cities, governments and municipalities institutionalize citizen-centered digital infrastructures such as Decidim, a digital infrastructure proposing non-corporate, decentralized, and collaborative forms of digital production to evoke participatory governance practices and ultimately social transformation (Barandiaran et al., 2018). Swiss city administrations have adapted the Decidim platform for participatory budgeting processes and city-wide participation platforms since 2019. This article explores the process of institutional adoption, focusing on how the use of Decidim impacts local practices and negotiations for governing urban space. The examination of the Decidim platform in the Swiss cities of Zurich and Lucerne will be framed by re-conceptualizing Lefebvre's right to the city in the age of digital transformation. The findings show that for a successful introduction of the Decidim platform based on principles of the right to the city (a) local needs for a new digital democratic instrument need to be pre-existent, (b) government employees must implement a scope of action which allows organized civil society and grassroots initiatives to appropriate the infrastructure for their own purposes, and (c) local practices of hybrid communication and organizing must be aligned with the structure of the platform. Nevertheless, digital participation tools such as Decidim cannot solve entrenched inequalities such as the financialization of land, the issue of disadvantaged neighborhoods, or the absence of voting rights for certain communities. Therefore, city administrations need to integrate hybrid participation strategies which prioritise collective power over distributive power as well as tackle urban inequalities through political means.

В статье проанализированы актуальные проблемы, связанные с эффективностью инвестиционных вложений. Отмечено несовершенство инвестиционного процесса в российской экономике. Рассмотрены различия между централизованными государственными и частными корпоративными инвестициями, причины нехватки инвестиций из всех источников. Отмечена необходимость развития внутреннего спроса на отечественные товары как обязательное условие быстрого роста частных инвестиций. Для ускорения роста необходима концентрация располагаемых инвестиционных ресурсов, в том числе централизованных, на тех экономических направлениях, которые способны обеспечить максимальное приращение платежеспособного внутреннего спроса на отечественные товары. Обозначена группа крайне важных для экономики и населения страны товаров, которые изначально обладают высокой конкурентоспособностью и способны производиться в России. Их обязательно будут покупать при надлежащей кредитной поддержке со стороны банковской системы. Задача государства, вероятно, в том и состоит, чтобы путем направленных и достаточно экстенсивных по своему характеру капитальных вложений устранить существующие диспропорции развивающегося отечественного рынка, сформировать ресурсную базу частных инвестиций. Риски кредитования инвестиционных проектов обязательно должны делиться между государственными институтами, предоставляющими ресурсы, и обычными коммерческими банками. Государство должно брать на себя часть инвестиционных рисков. Рассмотрены перспективы создания единой комплексной эффективной национальной системы частных инвестиций на основе организации надлежащего взаимодействия Банка России, институтов развития коммерческих банков и органов государственного управления, системы, в которой каждый ее участник имеет свою функцию и безукоризненно ее выполняет. ; The article analyzes current issues related to the efficiency of investment. The paper notes imperfection of investment in the Russian economy. The authors consider the differences between centralized government and private corporate investment, the reasons for the lack of investment from all sources. They mark the necessity of development of the domestic demand for domestic goods as an obligatory condition for the rapid growth of private investment. To accelerate growth, it is necessary to concentrate the available investment resources, including the centralized ones, on those economic areas which are able to provide the maximum increment of effective domestic demand for domestic goods. The authors specify a group of goods critical to the economy and population, which have high competitiveness and can be produced in Russia. They sure will be saleable, especially when there is an adequate credit support from the banking system. The task of the State, probably, is that, through capital investment, directed and quite extensive in nature, to eliminate the existing imbalances of the developing domestic market, and form the resource base of private investment. The State institutions, providing resources, and ordinary commercial banks should share the risks of lending the investment projects. The State must assume part of the investment risks. The authors are considering the prospects of a unified integrated system of effective national private investment through proper interaction between the Bank of Russia, institutions for development of commercial banks and the Government, a system in which every participant has a clear function and executes it perfectly.

2004 was a good year for doing business in most transition economies, the World Bank Group concluded in its Doing Business in 2005 survey, the second in its series tracking regulatory reforms aimed at improving the ease of doing business in the world's economies. However, the survey found that conditions for starting and running a business in poorer countries were consistently more burdensome than in richer countries. The top 5 economies on the ease of doing business were, in order: New Zealand, United States, Singapore, Hong Kong (China), and Australia. Slovakia was the leading reformer, together with Lithuania breaking into the list of the 20 economies with the best business conditions. The major impetus for reform in 2003 was competition in the enlarged European Union. Doing Business in 2004 presented indicators in 5 topics (starting a business, hiring and firing workers, enforcing contracts, getting credit and closing a business), so this report updates these measures. There are two additional sets: registering property and protecting investors. The indicators are used to analyze economic and social outcomes, such as productivity, investment, informality, corruption, unemployment, and poverty, and identify what reforms have worked, where and why.

Depuis 1989 et la régionalisation des transports en Belgique, la Société des transports intercommunaux de Bruxelles (STIB), l'opérateur public de transport en commun à Bruxelles, a subi de nombreux changements, tant structurels qu'organisationnels. Parallèlement, l'entreprise est parvenue à améliorer sa santé financière, conformément aux objectifs fixés par l'autorité organisatrice des transports, la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale. L'analyse du système d'acteurs montre que, dans une relation principal-agent caractérisée par une forte asymétrie d'information, la convergence des intérêts entre l'organe de tutelle et l'entreprise publique n'est ni naturelle, ni automatique :elle est construite. Cette construction se déroule à plusieurs niveaux et se matérialise de manière incrémentale, notamment à travers le contrat de gestion. Dans ce système de régulation, c'est le processus organisant le dialogue entre l'entreprise et sa tutelle qui produit les effets bénéfiques désirés, davantage que la valeur légale du contrat. L'interdépendance entre les actions de la Région et celles de la STIB implique des pratiques que l'on peut par ailleurs qualifier de partenariales. Enfin, l'analyse montre que la contractualisation n'est pas incompatible avec une évolution des rôles de chaque acteur.Since 1989 and the regionalization of public transports in Belgium, the Société des transports intercommunaux de Bruxelles (STIB), i.e. the public operator of urban transport in Brussels, has undergone many changes, both structural and organizational. Meanwhile, the company has managed to improve its financial health in accordance with the objectives set by the regulatory transport authority, the Region of Brussels-Capital. The analysis of the system of actors shows that, in a principal-agent relationship characterized by high information asymmetry, the convergence of interests between the supervisory authority and the public company is neither natural nor automatic: it is built. This construction takes place at several levels and materializes ...

La tesi di dottorato elaborata dal dott. Serafini analizza specificamente lo "statuto civilistico" di associazioni e fondazioni del Terzo settore, come risultante a seguito dell'entrata in vigore del d.lgs. 3 luglio 2017, n. 117, recante il «Codice del Terzo settore, a norma dell'art. 1, co. 2º, lett. b), della legge 6 giugno 2016, n. 106». In particolare, l'indagine è stata condotta nella prospettiva – segnata, in primis, dal legislatore delegante – della ridefinizione del ruolo del Terzo settore, nell'ambito dei rapporti tra Stato e cittadini, così come emergente da una lettura costituzionalmente orientata (ex. art. 118, co. 4°, Cost.), delle norme in tema di autonomia privata ed attività dei gruppi intermedi non lucrativi. Il fenomeno del Terzo settore è identificato per differenza rispetto a quelle forme organizzative della società civile che non sono riconducibili né alla struttura dello Stato (Primo settore) né alla dialettica del mercato (Secondo settore). Tale fenomeno individua, appunto, l'insieme dei soggetti che utilizzano strutture giuridiche collettive private, (anche) al fine della produzione di beni o di servizi, con destinazione al soddisfacimento di bisogni "sociali". In considerazione del carattere relativo e storicamente determinato dell'àmbito di autonomia riconosciuto ai privati nell'auto-organizzazione in strutture metaindividuali, il Capitolo I è stato dedicato alla ricostruzione storica dell'evoluzione dei rapporti tra Stato e corpi intermedi. A tal fine, si è scelto di analizzare due istituti che costituiscono un'efficace "cartina al tornasole" del fenomeno in discorso. Il riferimento agli istituti della personalità giuridica e della soggettività giuridica, intesi quali «procedimenti tecnici elaborati in vista dell'attribuzione di determinati vantaggi pratici a gruppi organizzati di individui» La progressiva autonomizzazione del diritto dei privati dal controllo statale è stata ricostruita dando ampio spazio, non solo al dato normativo, ma anche al formante dottrinale, con particolare attenzione all'impatto della Costituzione repubblicana sulla sistematica del diritto privato delle società intermedie. Primo punto d'assestamento dell'analisi sviluppata nel Capitolo I è costituito dall'illustrazione del nuovo regime di acquisto della personalità giuridica, riservato agli enti che intendano qualificarsi come "ETS" (mediante iscrizione al Registro unico nazionale del Terzo settore). Peraltro, com'è stato rendicontato nell'elaborato, tale regime – che si affianca a quello previgente previgente ex d.P.R. n. 361/2000 – ha suscitato considerevoli reazioni della dottrina, in merito ai (plurimi) problemi di coordinamento tra le due discipline di riferimento. Definito, nel Capitolo I, l'approccio generale del legislatore della riforma al tema dell'attribuzione della personalità agli enti del Terzo settore, nel Capitolo II sono stati analizzati gli elementi qualificanti per la sussunzione nella categoria degli ETS. Tale verifica, oltre ad essere intesa a definire il perimetro soggettivo della riforma, è diretta al fine di individuare dei presupposti causalistici ed organizzativi alla ricorrenza dei quali è consentito ai privati di accedere al trattamento di favore che il Codice riserva gli enti in discorso. A ben vedere, è tra il Capitolo II e il Capitolo III (volto ad indagare la specifica disciplina di associazioni e fondazioni del Terzo settore), che si rivela l'attitudine interdisciplinare del tema de qua, che vede, nel diritto tributario, un "fine" e, nel diritto commerciale, (quantomeno) un "mezzo". Sul presupposto dogmatico per cui la forma giuridica della personalità non incida sull'essenza della soggettività, limitandosi bensì ad indicarne una disciplina funzionale ad assicurare l'accesso a determinati effetti giuridici, il Capitolo III indaga quali siano questi effetti con riferimento specifico agli enti del Terzo settore. Questi ultimi, nella prospettiva sopra indicata, sono individuabili nell'accesso, da un lato, al regime fiscale agevolato e, dall'altro lato, al c.d. "statuto civilistico" degli ETS. Detto statuto, costituito dal complesso di regole di governance e di controllo, costituirebbe un valore in se', in vista del quale i privati sarebbero mossi alla iscrizione del Registro unico degli enti del Terzo settore. Difatti, mentre molti Autori hanno individuato il movente principale per (ambire a) qualificarsi quali ETS solo nella possibilità di accedere ad un regime fiscale agevolato, il lavoro qui presentato illustra come concorra con detta causale quella di presentarsi nel mercato con un'organizzazione più strutturata e con una trasparenza maggiore, di talché risulti potenziata la c.d. accountability sociale dell'ente. Ciò convince soprattutto se si accede alle più moderne ricostruzioni della law and economics che spiegano come il favore dell'utenza verso gli enti non profit deriverebbe dalla circostanza che questo settore meglio soddisfa il desiderio dell'utente di beneficenza, cioè, in particolare, di acquistare beni e servizi destinati, in ultima istanza, al soddisfacimento (anche) di un fine altruistico. Il codice del Terzo settore tutela specificamente la verificabilità di tale fine, estendendo agli ETS un'articolata serie di norme di corporate governance, di controllo contabile e di trasparenza, costituenti, appunto, lo "statuto" di cui sopra. In definitiva, l'elaborato mira ad offrire una ricostruzione sistematica della disciplina degli enti del Terzo settore, nella convinzione che questa possa costituire oggetto di particolare rilievo teorico, per gli studiosi della soggettività metaindividuale, e di grande interesse pratico, per i gruppi sociali intermedi attivi nel mercato del "non per profitto".

Just one flagrant American ESG violation among countless others.This news story from Bloomberg had me laffing so hard it hurt: Despite the action being rather novel--banning investment in US Treasuries over environmental, social and governance [ESG] grounds--it is undoubtedly true that America is an ESG disaster. Offhand, we can cite endless ESG offenses that the US has perpetuated on its citizens and the rest of the world. Among others:Environmental: Being the world's second-largest carbon emitter and, historically speaking, by far the world's largest;Social: Maintaining a persistent racial underclass of nearly half of blacks who have experienced inter-generational poverty despite accounting for less than 15% of the overall population;Governance: Inflicting far more gun deaths annually than any other country by allowing largely unfettered sale and ownership of military-style weapons. Now, it is not news to anyone that the US is a super-polluting, racialized and hyper-violent nation. However, it is news when others like the German state of Baden-Württemberg start calling a spade a spade... and put their money where their mouth is at: That's because the new environmental, social and good governance filters
have resulted in US Treasuries ending up on an investing blacklist, due
to America's failure to ratify a number of treaties in areas including
women's rights and controversial weapons...The bulk of Baden-Württemberg's exclusions impact its equity and
corporate bond portfolios. The law establishes the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals, the European Union's Taxonomy Regulation
and the Paris Agreement on climate change as the basis for future
investment decisions.Lest you think it's just one German state objecting to America, Inc., there are others:Back in Germany, meanwhile, other states have taken similar steps.
Baden-Württemberg, the only one of Germany's 16 states with a coalition
government led by the Greens, was inspired by a similar law in the
smaller state of Schleswig-Holstein, where bans apply to US Treasuries
as well as to fossil-fuel companies. And the pension funds of
Brandenburg, Hesse and Germany's richest state North Rhine-Westphalia
are this year allocating as much as €11 billion to Paris-aligned stock
indexes that exclude ESG laggards alongside Baden-Württemberg. While I do not doubt the sincerity of these actions, I am not convinced that what international ESG-related treaties a country has ratified should constitute the basis for assigning ESG ratings to sovereign debt. Solability, for instance, has a "Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index" (GSCI) that takes into account a number of indicators similar to conventional bond credit ratings.Ah well, I guess it's the thought that counts for these Germans.  

This paper uses survey data from 120 developing countries to compare the role of institutions with firm characteristics at the time of creation of the firm in explaining the size, growth, and productivity of firms over their lifecycle. The study finds that firm-level characteristics have comparable, and sometimes even larger, power than institutional factors in predicting size and growth, but not productivity. In particular, size at birth plays a key role in predicting variation in firm size and growth since birth over the firm lifecycle, whereas country factors dominate in predicting variation in labor productivity over the firm lifecycle. The study also finds that older firms are larger, partly because of the selection of more efficient firms. The findings point to the importance of initial founding conditions in explaining variations in size and growth over the firm lifecycle across countries.

Contents: 1 Introduction to the research handbook of sustainability agency / Satu Teerikangas, Katariina Koistinen, Tiina Onkila, Marileena Mäkelä -- Part I: Individual agency -- 2. Theorising individual agency within sociotechnical sustainability transitions frames: A social psychological review / Paul Upham, Paula Bögel, Rita G. Klapper and Eva Kašperová -- 3. Sustainability agency at the top of the organization: Microfoundations research on corporate sustainability / Ashley Salaiz, Shih-chi (Sana) Chiu and Judith L. Walls -- 4. Not dinosaurs but dynamos: The roles of middle managers in corporate social responsibility and sustainable development issues / Gustavo Birollo, Susana Esper and Linda Rouleau -- 5. Barriers to implementing sustainability experienced by middle managers in the fast-moving consumer goods and retail sector / Andrew Mountfield, Kelly Hrajnoha, Leslie Koh, Lija Lascenko, Renata Puchala and Cornelia Schalch -- 6. Employee agency in the context of organisational sustainability / Sally Russell, Fay Giæver and Tiina Onkila -- 7. The role of ambivalence in sustainable consumption: Literature review and research agenda / Jenni Sipilä -- Part II: Active agency -- 8. Roles and practices of institutional workers in climate change action: A review / Jan Hermes and Mikołaj Pawlak -- 9. Sustainability activism: A review of the state of the art / Marileena Mäkelä and Laura Olkkonen -- 10. Emotions in sustainability work: The case of ecopreneurs / Fay Giæver and Sally Russell -- 11. Social entrepreneurship as sustainability agency / Hanna Lehtimäki, Subhanjan Sengupta, Ville-Veikko Piispanen and Kaisa Henttonen -- 12. Agency of citizen collectives in sustainable transitions: The case of renewable energy cooperatives in Europe / Thomas Hoppe and Beau Warbroek -- 13. Social movement organizations' agency for sustainable organizing / Helen Etchanchu, Frank G.A. de Bakker and Giuseppe Delmestri -- Part III: Relational agency -- 14. Stakeholder engagement in sustainability transitions / Lara Gonzalez-Porras, Anna Heikkinen, Johanna Kujala and Riikka Tapaninaho -- 15. Partnerships to save the planet? Motivations, types and impacts of sustainability partnerships / Barbara Gray and Art Dewulf -- 16. The role of sustainability agency in mergers and acquisitions / Noelia-Sarah Reynolds and Melanie E. Hassett -- 17. Circular economy ecosystems: A typology, definitions, and implications / Leena Aarikka-Stenroos, Paavo Ritala and Llewellyn D. W. Thomas -- 18. Agency and sustainability in the construction industry / Niamh Murtagh and Natalya Sergeeva -- 19. Distributed agency in living labs for sustainability transitions / Anil Engez, Paul H. Driessen, Leena Aarikka-Stenroos and Marika Kokko -- 20. The interagency cycle in sustainability transitions / Ari Jokinen, Jarmo Uusikartano, Pekka Jokinen and Marika Kokko -- Part IV: Governance -- 21. Law, agency and sustainability: The role of law in creating sustainability agency / Jaakko Salminen and Mikko Rajavuori -- 22. Predictions from transitions theories, dynamic capabilities and real options theory on the role of governments as agents of sustainability / Ilias Krystallis and Katariina Koistinen -- 23. Local governments using their agency in sustainable transitions / Thomas Hoppe -- 24. Corporate sustainability from a strategic management perspective: One way for companies to support sustainability transitions / Romana Rauter and Sabrina Lämmerer -- 25. Sustainable consumption in the developing world: The case of India / Shenaz Rangwala and Chanaka Jayawardhena -- 26. Sustainability practices in informal economies: Actors, roles, and research outlook / Stefan Gröschl -- Part V: Sustainability agency -- 27. Synthesis and future research directions / Satu Teerikangas, Katariina Koistinen, Tiina Onkila and Marileena Mäkelä -- Index.

An impressive trend in global financial markets is the growth of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), some of which purport to invest ethically by considering the social and environmental impact of their financing. Yet, like private investors, these funds primarily view themselves as financial institutions interested in enhancing investment returns. A significant tension, therefore, may emerge between the ethical and financial expectations of SWFs. This article investigates two contrasting cases, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund - Global (NGPF-G) and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF), in order to evaluate how they address any tensions between being both virtuous and prosperous. These SWFs have legislative mandates to invest ethically, and have been hailed by some researchers as having among the most progressive approaches in this area.1 But neither fund yet manages its entire portfolio comprehensively to promote sustainable development. Increasingly, nation-states are establishing SWFs in a trend that seemingly defies an era in which many governments have sought to deregulate or otherwise limit their hand in the market.2 In their governance, formally SWFs are public institutions but functionally they are generally expected to be private actors. They invest large pools of state-owned assets in the market to meet macro-economic policy objectives,3 such as to buffer the sponsoring state's budget and economy against swings in international markets, or to build savings to meet future financial burdens such as pension payments. SWFs are typically funded through either commodity-based earnings, such as from a country's natural resources sector, or by noncommodity- based resources, such as foreign exchange reserves and general taxation revenue.4 The NGPF-G is a commodity-based fund, built on Norway's large oil reserves, while the NZSF is supported by non-commodity financing. Such concentration of wealth has made SWFs, an institutional phenomenon that began in the mid-1950s, influential actors in the global economy.5 According to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, as of May 2011 there were 52 SWFs worldwide, with assets of some US$4.3 trillion.6 A recent survey by the Monitor Group, published in July 2011, put Norway's SWF as the largest (with US$560 billion in assets), while New Zealand's was ranked 20th (valued at US$15.8 billion).7 With SWFs' assets expected to at least double within the next decade,8 and growing awareness of their economic clout and capacity to project state political power, international efforts to create voluntary behavioural codes for such funds have grown. The principal achievement to date is the Santiago Principles,9 which emphasise transparency, clarity, and equivalent treatment with private funds similarly operated. In addition to these issues, the socially conscious goals of some SWFs has stirred debate about the wisdom of mixing ethical investment with wealth maximisation goals, and attempting to influence corporate social and environmental behaviour.10 SWFs share several characteristics which might lead them more than private sector financiers to invest in sustainable development. Their ownership or control by a state can enmesh them in the machinery of government, and thereby render them instruments of public policy. Further, because of their sheer size and government backing, SWFs tend to have higher risk tolerances and might therefore bear investment strategies eschewed by private financiers. Thirdly, SWFs tend to have longer-term financial considerations than the private sector, which may encourage investing that is mindful of threats such as climate change. However, few states so far have obliged SWFs to invest ethically. While regulations to encourage socially responsible investment ("SRI," as ethical investment is sometimes known) in the private sector are appearing, such as taxation incentives and corporate governance reforms, explicit duties to practice SRI have only been imposed on public financial institutions.11 The first precedents were adopted in the 1980s by some states and municipalities in the United States, which restricted government pension funds from investing in firms operating in the discriminatory milieu of South Africa12 or Northern Ireland.13 Since 2000, the SWFs of Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and France have been subject to legislative direction to invest ethically, with more comprehensive and ambitious obligations than the American precedents. Ethical investment by SWFs is controversial. Some observers believe that investment should be based only on economic and financial grounds and, especially in the case of SWFs, there is further concern that SRI could be a means for sponsoring states to insinuate their social and environmental policies globally.14 For instance, a 2009 survey of 146 asset managers having routine dealings with SWFs reported that most "did not think governments should have any influence over investment decisions despite the fact that SWFs are managing governments' money."15 But such concerns misunderstand the changing rationale and aims of SRI. A long-standing movement that once had few adherents,16 SRI is attracting investors who are reassessing the financial relevance of social and environmental behaviour. No longer is SRI pursued largely as a matter of ethical compulsion, as in the 1970s divestment campaign led by religious groups against South Africa's apartheid regime,17 and their earlier admonitions against investment in tobacco, alcohol and other "sin" stocks.18 Rather, many social investors today, in both the institutional and retail sectors, take a more comprehensive view of business conduct through the lens of sustainable development. Sustainable development (or "sustainability" as the concept is sometimes known) is an ideal widely endorsed in theory as a goal of states, international bodies and businesses, and has been enshrined as an objective of the European Union treaty.19 It seeks to curb unfettered economic exploitation of nature by ensuring consumption of renewable resources within their rate of regeneration, limiting waste and pollution to the assimilative capacity of the biosphere, and conserving the biodiversity of the planet.20 Some investors recognise the financial materiality of sustainability, such as when corporate polluters create financial risks or, conversely, firms pioneer innovative environmental technologies and services.21 Although, often the nexus between environmental and financial returns is misunderstood or overlooked by financiers. For large institutional investors, including SWFs, the sustainability imperative has mostly fluently been theorised through the concept of the "universal owner." Hawley and Williams hypothesise that institutional investors who invest widely across the market will benefit financially by taking into account the social and environmental externalities in their portfolios.22 As economy-wide investors, they should "have no interest in abetting behavior by any one company that yields a short-term boost while threatening harm to the economic system as a whole."23 Acting as a universal investor implies that any "externality" at the level of an individual company may result in a costly "internality" for an investor's global portfolio. Such sentiments have underpinned the proliferation of codes of conduct for SRI,24 such as the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI)25 and the Equator Principles.26 Although adherence to such benchmarks is ostensibly voluntary, they have garnered many signatories, including the NGPF-G and the NZSF, and thereby helped standardise and disseminate SRI norms and practices.27 Some interesting research has begun to measure the cost of environmental externalities to universal investors. A report prepared for the UNPRI Secretariat evaluated the price of environmental damage worldwide to which the companies in a representative investment portfolio contribute, and estimated these in 2008 to be US$6.6 trillion or 11% of global GDP.28 The report expects such costs by 2050 to grow to US$28.6 trillion (18% of projected global GDP).29 The rest of this article takes up these themes by examining the SRI policies and practices of the Norwegian and New Zealand SWFs. In comparing how they attempt to reconcile their ethical and financial aspirations, the article highlights the importance of governance frameworks. While there are some salient differences in how each SWF is governed, each has, especially in their early years, focused on avoiding complicity in unethical conduct or social and environmental harm. This stance represented a rather narrow approach to ethical investment, which limited the capacity of these SWFs to promote environmentally sustainable development. More recently, both funds have begun to accept the business case for SRI, and reconceptualised ethical investment as a means of promoting long-term financial returns. But neither the NGPFG nor the NZSF is mandated to actively promote sustainable development or to seek improvements in corporations' sustainability performance. In the future evolution of SWFs, the creation of explicit duties to invest in sustainability is perhaps the next logical step if they are to influence benignly the global economy.