"One of the ways to understand the success of impact investing firms is to examine how they add value to the social enterprises they invest. Did their investment boost social and/or environmental change? And what type of support, beyond financial capital, can they provide to enhance impact? Drawing on a design-based methodology, we seek to address some of these questions by developing a tool called the Impact Oriented Value Framework. Putting impact at the centre of the funds' purpose, the framework provides actionable solutions to infuse impact into investors’ non-financial support strategies and activities, enhancing their additionality to portfolio companies as well as their contribution to the impact ecosystem."

"Using a unique sample of retail impact investors, this study evaluates how investors deal with the challenge of aligning their financial and their nonfinancial goals. We find that investors with stronger nonfinancial motives are more likely to expect the overperformance of an impact investment and the underperformance of traditional equity and bond investments than investors with weaker nonfinancial motives. This cross-asset relationship between nonfinancial motives and expected performance indicates that investors form expectations that fit with the investment decisions that their nonfinancial motives are likely to motivate. We also find that after experiencing losses, investors with stronger nonfinancial motives are less likely to revise their expectation that the impact investment will underperform and more likely to expect that the impact investment will overperform than other investors. Our findings provide further evidence that preferences can affect expectations, and challenge conclusions drawn from observed behavior regarding investors’ willingness to pay for impact."

"We examine spillover and hedging among impact investing and agricultural commodities. Results demonstrate that impact investing is a prominent spillover transmitter during both calm conditions and crises, while agricultural commodities are typically receivers. Analysis indicates that hedging effectiveness is enhanced by portfolios containing impact investing and agricultural products, with this more so during crises. Additionally, analysis reveals that irrespective of position on the risk aversion spectrum, investors gain utility substantially by including impact investing and agricultural assets, even considering transaction costs. These findings add to the extant literature and offer practical implications for investors, fund managers, and policymakers regarding risk management perspectives and portfolio diversification."

"The goal of this report is to inspire more philanthropists to act. The report provides tools, case studies, and encouragement to help existing and potential climate philanthropists overcome barriers to action."

"This report provides investors with insights on how impact performance analytics can unlock deeper understanding of investors’ actions and the real-world impact of their capital. This brief explores the positive effects of non-financial support on improving the impact of investee companies on the clients they serve in the sustainable agriculture sector. Findings highlight the role that non-financial support from investors can play in strengthening the impact performance of investments, improving sustainable agricultural practices and increasing the number of farmers served by their investments each year."

"By applying the COMPASS methodology to explore both investee- and investment-level impact performance, these studies enable investors to understand the impact performance of their investments and compare progress relative to the change needed to tackle climate change and improve job quality. Specifically, these studies examine how investors can differentiate their investment results on the basis of impact. With a standard method, investors can compare performance with their peers in a reliable way, indeed even compete with peers, to strengthen performance. Using the same process, but considering results from another perspective, investors can also compare their performance to the change that is needed to tackle the global challenge they aim to address."

"The Report on the Treatment of MSME Insolvency arises out of a panel presentation that took place during the 2015 meeting of the World Bank Group’s Insolvency and Creditor/Debtor Regimes Task Force (the ICR Task Force) and subsequent discussion among Task Force members in 2016. Following the discussion in 2015, the ICR Task Force resolved to prepare a report on the challenges, needs, and responses to MSME insolvency. As always, in light of the ICR Task Force mandate, the objective of this work is to inform the World Bank Group’s role as joint standard setter (together with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) in the area of insolvency and creditor/debtor rights."

"In this report, we suggest a research agenda around understanding the growth of entrepreneurs and small firms in East African countries. The study is to be designed as a series of surveys conducted twice a year with the aim of being able to track firm and entrepreneurial dynamics in the short and medium term. This report is based on a pilot that we conducted with a small sample of firms (not just formal firms and not just large firms) in Kenya and Uganda. The aim was to understand whether we can get extremely cheap data using new technologies for firms that can shed light on the constraints faced by firms and entrepreneurs in these economies."

"To gain a fuller picture of how MSMEs are using digital tools, DAI’s Center for Digital Acceleration partnered with survey firm Ipsos and Meta to administer a large-scale survey across 13 countries: Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Mexico. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, our researchers took a face-to-face approach allowing us to compare responses from MSMEs operating both online and off. The country briefs provide an overview of each country’s digital ecosystem and MSME sector, followed by a summary of findings regarding the impact of digital tool usage on MSMEs and economic growth, highlighting differences in the responses among key segments of the surveyed business population within each country."

"This report examines key assumptions held by development practitioners – in terms of the productivity, employment-generation capacity, and inclusivity of SMEs – and assesses the extent to which they are supported by robust empirical evidence."