Feasible Institutions of Social Finance: A Taxonomy

This paper unpacks the continuum of social finance institutions (SFIs), ranging from foundations offering pure grants to banks supplying soft loans. The in-between category includes under-researched “quasi-foundations” granting loans requiring partial repayment. We develop a model under which SFIs maximize their contribution arising financing successful projects, budget constraint dictated by funders. Our determines feasibility each SFI and reveals that quasi-foundations are efficient adapted environments with low market rates. Finally, we show value-based unconditional reciprocity borrowers can elicit so-called “hold-up” effect, whereby maximizing its charges high interest rate loyal clients.