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By Way of Law. Assessment of the Actual Impact of Social Investment Projects in Russia and Worldwide

Ivan Smekalin

DOI 10.55140/2782–5817–2023–3–1–58–65

Social investment started to gain popularity all over the world in the last century, yet it still has not received a clear legislative support. This article reviews the practices of legal regulation of social investment, i.e. what legal structures have been created to formalize and regulate this sphere in Russia and worldwide, and identifies mechanisms and functions required to evaluate the actual impact, followed by identifying key areas for improvement.

Ivan Smekalin

Analyst, Factory of Positive Changes, master’s student at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris)

THE DEFINITION OF SOCIAL INVESTMENT

Social investment, also known as transformative investment, social impact investment, or impact investment (Kwon, 2020, p. 24; Mackevičiūtė et al., 2020; Center for Studies of Civil Society and Nonprofit Sector, NRU HSE, 2020), is aimed at maximizing the social value created by investees. This type of investment has become known worldwide in the 20th century, and even though the term is used increasingly often in Russia, it still has not received a definition in the Civil Code nor has a Federal Law “On Social Investment” been passed. Various legal constructs fall under the broad framework of social investment, such as the status of a social entrepreneur and tax incentives for socially beneficial activities.

Speaking about the importance of improving the mechanisms of state regulation of social investment, we can refer to the survey of employees of financial companies, banks and foundations, conducted by the Center for Studies of Civil Society and Nonprofit Sector of the National Research University – Higher School of Economics in 2019. According to the study, about a third of the respondents cite the legislative and regulatory framework that limits the application of social investment as a barrier to their development (Ivanova, 2020).

RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN EXPERIENCE IN ASSESSING THE ACTUAL IMPACT IN THE FIELD OF SOCIAL INVESTMENT

Assessment of the actual impact of statutory regulations is an examination of a current legislative act, designed to eliminate ambiguous wording, identify provisions that result in excessive costs to businesses and investors, as well as the budget system of the Russian Federation.

The difference between the actual impact assessment (AIA) and the regulatory impact assessment (RIA) is that the AIA is conducted after the regulatory document has been adopted and interprets the changes achieved, while the RIA takes place before the adoption. In other words, AIA, as an analysis of the consequences of the established regulation, is in fact ex post (after the fact) regulatory impact assessment (Alekseeva, 2017).