Governments in the United States are considering the social impact bonds first piloted with organizations that aim to prevent prisoner recidivism in the United Kingdom.

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"Wouldn't it be nice if taxpayers could somehow get a refund for government programs that didn’t work?

"Instead, the opposite tends to happen. Programs that fail to make a difference - like many of those that train workers for new jobs - endure indefinitely. Often, policy makers don't even know which work and which don't, because rigorous evaluation is rare in government. And competition, which punishes laggards in the private sector, is typically absent in the public sector.

"But there is some good news on this front. Lately, both American and British policy makers have been thinking about how to bring some of the competitive discipline of the market to government programs, and they have hit on an intriguing idea.

"David Cameron's Conservative government in Britain is already testing it, at a prison 75 miles north of London. The Bloomberg administration in New York is also considering the idea, as is the State of Massachusetts. Perhaps most notably, President Obama next week will propose setting aside $100 million for seven such pilot programs, according to an administration official."

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