Toward a Post-casino Paradigm

Abstract

This chapter argues that leveraging financial innovation, firms and countries can boost their own competitiveness while increasing their contribution to national development. Given the book’s point of departure—“our future, yea or nay”—, it follows that financial innovation has to matter, and be more than a distraction and career opportunity for a certain number of professionals. The bar is high: what’s needed is investment capital to roll out superior solutions serving longstanding human need and market demand that also create financial value. This chapter looks at the pathways to build exactly such a preferred future. Mindful of impact investment content at scale, it first discusses proxy voting, so as to influence the large and liquid listed equity segments on capital markets. It then looks at two potential sources of large-scale innovative investment content: strategic investments in emerging markets, and investing for impact in the Internet of Things. Finally, the chapter introduces the paradigm of “impact light.”