On June 13, 2024, the Fudan Institute for Global Public Policy (IGPP) organized the 58th lecture of the Fudan-LSE Lecture Series. Professor Bin Chen at the City University of New York delivered a lecture on the topic New Public Management Marketizers versus Neo-Weberian Modernizers? Institutional Configurations of Social Impact Bond Utilization among 18 OECD Countries, chaired by Professor Yijia Jing, Dean of the IGPP.

Professor Chen discussed the dilemmas faced by government purchasing of services and contracting out, using the case of the Rixos Prison in the US as an example. In this context, social impact bonds (SIBs) as a new public management (NPM) style delegation model contain elements of other reform frameworks, expanding their attractiveness and variation potential in different reform contexts. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), Professor Chen analyzed the institutional paths of SIB utilization in 18 OECD countries, identifying two high-utilization configurations and four low-utilization configurations.

Professor Jing summarized and commented on the lecture, affirming Professor Chen's outstanding contributions to the problems of government purchasing of services and contracting out. The case stories of the convergence or divergence of the 18 OECD countries also have enlightening implications for China's institutional design on similar issues.