First we have John Kohler here, who's with the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, esteemed career in Social Entrepreneurship and funding, BC as well. We also have Morgan Simon with us, founding partner of Candide Group and author of the book Real Impact, The New Economics of Social Change. And we have Kate Byrne, who is the Chief Growth Officer at Good Light Capital. So, esteemed group here, and they put in the work to curate the track, the whole Social Entrepreneurship track. So we thank you for all of your help doing that. And at the end I'm going to ask you which sessions you're most excited about, so be ready. All right, let's dive in. And if you have questions, I believe there's paper over there and pencils to write your questions. And back there they will collect your questions, rather than doing a hand raising, we'll collect questions via paper and then do it that way. So if you have questions, go that way. So as we see, the theme of SOCAP this year is Facing Urgency. This is a really unique time in for Social Entrepreneurship. And that's for a number of reasons, but it's a time that really requires urgency to capitalize on what's been done to date and really advance the field going forward. And I think that's why we're all here. So to start us off, I'd love to hear from our panelists about how you would characterize the state of Social Entrepreneurship today. And we'll start with Kate, but make it a conversation. Is this, yes it is. Hi everyone, great to have you here and thank you so much for supporting this work. To me it's an incredible time because for so long many of us have hoped that entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship would just be one and the same. In fact, it would be redundant. And I believe we're right there and why? There's a whole generational change. So those who are in fact becoming the social entrepreneurs have are so much more purpose oriented. I think there's a generational change with the money and those who are doing the investing. I think technology such as generative AI is leveling the playing field and enabling social entrepreneurs to punch above their weight. And frankly, the social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs are doing something that's so important and that's collaborate. You don't have a ton of ego in the game. That is such an advantage.  Which means you're realizing, hey, we can partner and by two or three of us getting together, we can make so much better in road and so much faster. And then finally, I would also just say from a geographical standpoint, there's so much work being done locally and that's being taken very seriously. And as such, we're starting to get all the parties, government, universities, policymakers, and corporations involved. My goal, my hope would be that one day, who knows, perhaps a way of making corporations, in fact, more intention oriented, to have them work with social entrepreneurs so that they become more purpose driven themselves. That would be, I think, a very trustworthy way of doing it, much like how they do with innovation. IKEA has been doing a great job with this since 2012. Well, what's great is I had originally thought this question was just going to Kate and it means that I get to give my authentic off the cuff answer, which is going to be kind of the other side of that coin. Which is I do agree in general in terms of all of those kind of trends and foreign momentum of what we've built over the last couple of decades. But if I were to speak to really the current state in this moment, of what I see from a lot of social entrepreneurs is pain and struggle. And that these markets have just been incredibly complicated, that we're seeing that not just for social entrepreneurs, but for entrepreneurs in general. But the challenge is that we often see for social entrepreneurs the presumption that it's because they tried to do something different, right? As opposed to acknowledging that these are challenging times that we're all facing together. And that doesn't mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which I think is an expression John first said to me many years ago. In saying that we need to find ways to come through this as a community, just as we're all trying to figure out how to do business in a different way together and have to be aware of the current moment and how I know for a lot of entrepreneurs to try to present with a happy face when you're trying to raise money, when you're dealing with real crisis in your company is awful, can have incredible emotional toll. So I think it's a moment for us to have that honesty with each other. In terms of just being able to say sometimes it's hard. And for those of us with portfolios that are really struggling right now, it's hard to remain in right relationship, right? And what are the times when we aren't able to support with additional capital? So I want to allow the hardness. I think one of the challenges we've had is an impact investing in social entrepreneurship space over the decades is we fought so hard just to exist that sometimes when things get hard we don't want to talk about it too much because we're still kind of grasping onto our space. So I want to allow this current moment to be a little bit challenging. And I feel strongly that we'll get through it together. But currently it's feeling hard. Yeah, do you want to add anything? Yeah, sure. So hello everybody, thank you for joining this session. I get to wear a couple of different hats. One working with entrepreneurs and the other working with fund managers and investors and it's quite rewarding in this particular field, this impact investing sector. I'll be the bread, I think, in this sandwich. I would say there has never been a better time for entrepreneurship. There are more resources, there's more content available to help people get started with a great, if they have a great idea, how do I build a company? How do I get this started? Where do I go for extra resources? And even a much more vibrant angel investing or early stage capital as a resource to help them breathe life into their dreams. The flip side of that is I admonish entrepreneurs to be entrepreneur 3.0. And what I mean by that is, as Morgan just pointed out, social entrepreneurship, we were just kind of hanging onto it, trying to prove the point that it could happen. And that at the core of a company's function can be environmental or social good that's measurable and authentic. And so there's a number of different ideas. Entrepreneurship 2.0, social entrepreneurship 2.0, was to go to school on the 1.0 and if you were an entrepreneur with a new idea, make sure that it's a new idea, not a retread of an old idea. And if it's a retread of an old idea, or perhaps an extension, did what worked and what didn't. And so that you could actually be more successful in bringing out a successful entrepreneur or enterprise. Entrepreneur 3.0 is what I would say is today. And the 3.0 is how do you scale those good ideas? So I really would hope that we can move fast to scale the best ideas so we can improve our impact. I like that sandwich, the positive with it is challenging. And I think all of that can be true at the same time. Can we add just one thing? Yes. Really quickly, I promise we won't stay on this question forever. Completely agree. And the beauty I feel for the social entrepreneurs is, because you don't have as much ego, we're counting on you to be transparent, right?  So I feel as though, as Morgan says, admit it that it's hard. That's okay, and you're sharing your findings. And through that sharing, that's how we can continue to move forward. So. No, and that's fantastic actually because it leads to our next conversation, which is really that amidst all of this context, we really need to be thinking hard about the conversations about optimal models and expectations of social entrepreneurs. And really thinking, well, during our discussion to prepare a couple weeks ago, you all mentioned a couple of things that I want to make sure I get right here. But really the idea of keeping prosperity closer to where value is created. And who makes the decision matters? And so I want to take that up really as we're thinking about social entrepreneurship. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this idea of non-extractive finance and inclusive forms of social entrepreneurship. What are you seeing and what are some of the lessons that we're learning? Yeah, we can start with Morgan. So my daily work essentially is with families and foundations who want their money working for justice. And there's two phrases that often stick in my head as we do that work and that I don't think we've resolved, but that I think are questions we keep present. And the first is the idea of nothing about us without us, which you often hear in social movements. And this idea that we need to both as entrepreneurs and investors create opportunities for communities to engage in design and governance and ownership of enterprise. And that with that contributing to the idea of non-extractive finance, which is very simply that we should be contributing more value than we're taking out of communities. Because if not, we're basically taking systems that are incredibly unfair and making them slightly less unfair as opposed to really looking at what structurally needs to be done differently. So with our investments, we try to literally measure, are we putting more value into communities that we're taking back out. It's kind of a key metric of how we think about what it means to be in right relationship with communities. The other expression that comes up a lot is the idea of the golden rule, which is very simply that the one who has the gold makes the rules. And that often means in the context of impact investment that very well meaning wealth holders are making decisions with deep impact on the lives of other people. All the time, every day. I am certainly extremely guilty of this. And it means that we've been trying to do more to set up participatory structures. So at Candy Group, we have two debt funds, Olamina and then Afterglow, a climate justice fund that's just launching where we created community advisory boards where these boards of experience, activists and practitioners have majority decision making power on the investment committees and veto power over investments. And it was a way of saying the people in closest proximity to problems are the ones who are going to make the best decisions about solutions. So we're starting to see more savvy asset owners and investors saying, rather than me making a bunch of little decisions of how to build a portfolio, I'm going to make one big decision. And that decision is to give over decision making control to people who are closer to the issue. So I think that's where it's thinking about for entrepreneurs, what are the ways that I can be community accountable in my work? And for investors, how do I think about that down to the level of who's getting to decide? John, do you have anything, John? So I'll take that, maybe the value chain part of that question. So leaving, from an entrepreneur's perspective, leaving more prosperity in the community that creates the value. Smallholder farmers, co-ops and so on, is often a great way of achieving impact and a great way of amplifying what could happen and also make a company out of it. Morgan and I both have investments in companies like that. And so an entrepreneur will view it as, okay, how do I do better soil amendment in particular agricultural concern? How do I get the co-op to do more field side processing to leave some of the value, more of the value at field side or at harvest? How do I have financial services come in to help the farmers bridge between harvest periods so that they don't have to sell their crops too early? How do I connect the demand and do the bagging and tagging and supply chain transparency that international purchasing would require? And how do I do the grading of the product quality? How do I do the education to the farmers in terms of better practices in the field? All of that is a great vertical way of addressing a value chain, so to speak, disintermediation of who actually makes the profits. Try to leave that middle man out of it as best you can. There's a fund manager's perspective, which could be a little different. The value chain being more like AquaSpark, you're familiar with. The value chain being, wait a minute. If I'm going to look at how the actual inputs are created, if I'm going to look at how the education and the finance happens at a particular producer community, if I'm going to then look at cold chain or other kinds of intermediate steps about how product gets to market, I'm not speaking all agriculture, but this is true for any number of products or sectors, all the way to final consumption. If I'm a fund manager, I might want to be assembling portfolio companies that I've invested in who are co-supportive of each other and who give insights across that horizontal value chain aggregation, not just a vertical one. So let's take that piece. I love that. I like the idea of thinking differently about how your portfolio looks, how you're supporting the whole system and the value chain. And thinking about that actually, there are, we've talked about a number of new models and pilots on funding and entrepreneurship and moving the field forward. And specifically, I think lately, we've been hearing in the news about the Fearless Fund. And Morgan, I know you've written about this case recently in Forbes. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about what's happening, broader lessons we're learning, and really what the response should be from the social entrepreneurship community. So yeah, the last, I guess five or six years I've served as a senior contributor to Forbes and just have been grateful for the opportunity to get to share more social justice stories within the finance community. And I'm not sure, I'm actually curious, how many folks have heard about the Fearless Fund case? So about half. And this is essentially a lawsuit about providing grants to businesses led by black women. It's actually the tip of the iceberg in that there's now additional lawsuits to Hello Alice, to Lyft, to Ceres. And a tip of the iceberg in the context of a broader attack on the movement for racial justice. And the idea that in order to work towards racial justice, we need to be able to talk about. And essentially that in this lawsuit it was saying that you weren't supposed to be using race as a criteria in terms of giving out grants. And a lot of people are seeing that that could also potentially apply to how investments are made. And certainly a number of the funds that we've supported as Candid have specifically focused on black, Latinx and indigenous entrepreneurs. And that is something we intend to continue doing. So I think it's important to acknowledge the response from some investors been to say, I gotta back up, I don't know. I gotta think about this thing. Can I really continue to invest with a racial justice agenda? And I would say that it's never been more important to continue. And there's a quote that's often misattributed to sometimes to Gandhi, sometimes to Mandela, but let's say something for important social change leaders of saying, first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win. And that sometimes we have to remember particularly, and I've certainly been in this camp before, people often talk about the right to comfort as one of the habits of white supremacy. And the idea that sometimes we have to be okay with the idea of we have to fight to achieve things. This is going to be part of the process. And then it's an important moment to remember it's okay to fight for racial equity, and it's okay to talk about race, or not even okay, it's essential that we do that for all of us, for all of our sakes. And from that perspective, the response from many others has been to say, let's make sure that we continue to push forward in a racial justice agenda to talk about race in the way that we invest. And also to make sure that we are building some of the legal resources that we're going to need on the presumption that this will be a long fight. So there is a legal fund that's in formation. There's also been some interesting legal analysis that's been done, for instance, particularly for debt funds of some of the ways that you can structure this to feel comfortable moving forward and having explicit racial thesis. So if people are interested in learning more, I'm happy to talk to people more about the specifics of it. But I think the general note is just to be aware that this is happening, that we don't get to operate as in a vacuum as we're starting to kind of move more into the mainstream. It's reasonable that we're going to get attacked and that we have the resources within our communities to fix it. And the other piece that feels kind of personal to me in the context of watching this go down, as some people know a couple of years ago, I personally and my company was sued for $55 million by a private prison company for defamation, once again for statements and forbs for simply having said that prisons separate families. And I know that's ridiculous because they do categorically, right? And we won that lawsuit, but it took years, it was painful, it's challenging. So we do need to also acknowledge that people are going to struggle and that we need to be there for them. We need to make sure that we're proactively offering that support. So obviously I'm pretty fired up about this. I'll turn over the mic. Thank you about the laughing at you and the fight and then you win. I mentioned I'm a professor and one of the things that my students say is, but there's so much backlash right now and to me that means that we're on the right track, right? Yeah, Kate or John, anything you wanted to add? I was actually, whoops, yes. I was actually going to go right down there because that's sort of, I've spent my life being that grain of sand in the oyster and that's how change comes about. And I don't know if anyone saw Unshareable, the movie that was playing the other day, it was a great movie. Be that trim tab, right? They spoke about the trim tab, which is the rudder on the rudder and that little rudder has so much power and it can drive the change and that's really what I see social entrepreneurship as. It may not come about as quickly as we'd like but don't kid yourselves, you really are making a change. At Goodlite, we have personally felt this backlash because we are black and female run and it's been very difficult for us as a group to get our own funding. The good news is we continue to fund everyone that that entire population and we'll continue to do so, so. That's fantastic. I want to go back to something, Morgan, that you said at the very beginning which is just about the difficult environment and I don't want to ignore that. I want us this to be a beacon of hope but I don't want to ignore that it is hard right now and the funding environment is difficult but there are also emerging trends to watch. So, John, I know you mentioned earlier that you worked with fund managers. How are they seeing the investment climate today and how is that climate impacting social entrepreneurs like the ones in this room? Okay, let's see if this worked, there we go, all right. So, a couple of things. If you said what would be my message to entrepreneurs, it would be survive. I don't think this is a long-term message but I think right now the funding environment is a little difficult. In fact, there's quite a bit of maybe hesitancy from fund managers. I would love to hear how you two are seeing this but people are a little bit concerned about whether it's external events and conflict but also there was, I think probably a digestion issue where there was a lot of money in the market in 2000, 2001 even up to 2002, sorry, 2022, 2021 and 20 but that's kind of fallen off. I was just with two fund managers yesterday both operating in Africa and they say that their experience is that it is one fifth of the amount of capital available to entrepreneurs today as opposed to 2022. One fifth, that's an 80% fall off. If you look at chart R or Carta or Pitch Book you can see the same kinds of data which say there are a lot more down rounds right now than up rounds and there's just not a lot of capital being laid out there. It's not just impact investing, it's all investing so it's a real concern. So, I wrote to somebody not too long ago and I said, look, I think it's time to pull out the Sequoia Capital 52 slide admonition to their portfolio companies back in the financial crisis of 2008 where they basically said, cut your burn, survive. This is gonna be tough for a few years. Don't expect to be able to raise capital as your way out. Be profitable as best you can and survive and I think that that's probably a good note about how hard it is as an environment right now for people, okay, yeah. Well, I was just gonna say one of the things that we really are doubling down on is the wisdom of the crowd. So we're in the process of creating a number of community evolution funds where it's got a much lower entry fee investment and getting as many people involved that mirror those who have historically been underrepresented founding companies to become in fact the funders. And I think that's the piece that will really drive the change that we're all hoping to see. And at the same time, we have talked a little bit about how difficult it is, but when we were talking a couple weeks ago, you also talked about how there are a number of trends that you're seeing in the funding space. And so I'd love to hear more about those and what that might mean for the social entrepreneurs that are out there in the audience. Okay, I'll just do a quick one. You go, we'll wait. All right, so there has been a mismatch of capital.  And so we have misapplied venture capital mechanisms in impact investing to the tune where if we have an equity investment, we need an equity liquidity event in order to get out of that. What is that? Well, that's an IPO, that's a merger or acquisition. And I think that that's antithetical to a number of the, to most of the aspirations of any social entrepreneur, meaning that they don't want to flip their company. And more importantly, they're not seeking global domination, they're trying to solve a problem, which at best is regional and maybe sometimes more than that, but they're trying to solve a problem. There was a presentation earlier this morning at the Miller Center showcase with Sistema Via Balsa. They call it Sistema Bio now and they're raising some more money. And I think that that's probably one of the few who have gradually over the last 10 years, gone out and scaled to a point of where they're in multiple continents, but that is not usual. So I would say that the theme I've seen is much more of an embrace by investors to use structured exits, to use debt, to use mezzanine or other kinds of investments, or even to change the structure of their funds. So in two ways, one is to be a close-ended fund and then trade on that asset value as an sort of evergreen effort, AquaSpark being an example of that. And then the other is to be opportunity funds. So they might have laid out in a series of investments, those are still percolating and now they create an opportunity fund which is going to cherry pick some of the earlier portfolios and continue to propel those companies going forward. One of the axioms of venture capital is you don't necessarily make all your money because you're the best company picker in your first investment. You make it your money by following your winners. And I think that the opportunity funds are part of that logic being applied to impact capital. I think following up on that in terms of diversification of goals, that that's part of really what is the purpose of putting capital out into the universe and what is the purpose as entrepreneurs who could be doing all sorts of other wonderful things with your lives to be choosing what can be a really challenging path. Part of that is we think about what's the way that society could be structured differently. Going back to what I mentioned before about how do we better engage communities in design, governance and ownership. A lot of what we're seeing that's quite interesting lately is real innovation on the governance and ownership side and saying that whatever the business might create in society, being more thoughtful about who's going to participate in those profits, who gets to be part of the decision making and whether that's worker cooperatives, whether that's ESOPs, whether that's perpetual purpose trusts that these are a number of the vehicles that we've been a part of supporting. I would invite folks to take a look at the work that Oberon that Joseph is doing and might raise his hand if he's not too shy. But really there's a lot of incredible thinkers in our community who have been convening to really try to delve into that question of how do we want the productive means to be owned and what's going to shift. So we've been really excited to get to support a number of those innovations. The other piece that I wanted to note in terms of where we're starting to make some ground in funding trends but I think need to continue to push forward, it's interesting even if we talk about diminishing funding environments, I was reading recently a study from Crunchbase that 70% of entrepreneurs over a five year period were all Stanford grads, white men, and that funding for women was less than 10%. Funding for Latino founders less than 2%, less than 1% for black founders. So the starting place that so many of us are at from a funding environment is so abysmal, right? In terms of proportionally where we just stand in society. If we're even not talking about people often say prioritizing, it's not even that, it's saying if we started from what are the national demographics and could we try to even match that as funders, as our starting place. That would mean significantly needing to shift how resources are allocated, even if resources were more scarce. If we were able to double triple those numbers, I think that we're able to have that sort of reorganization even in the context of a scarce or funding environment. And that that I think is leading towards some really great investment decisions and opportunities. I think that that's the other thing to be clear of. What have we been missing out on if 70% of investments come from just one university? Which is a fantastic university, but there's many more out there. And the thing that's funny about that is I was just recently reading that 60% of venture funding actually comes from New York, San Francisco, and LA. That each of those areas have cities that represent 60% people of color. And if they even just started to support that group alone, the gap would diminish in 10 years and that would be such a positive step forward. But what I wanted to share is for the entrepreneurs in the room, bup, bup, bup, bup. Don't forget, don't give up your power. This is a two-way interview and I know that's easy to say or seemingly so when things are good, but when it's really, really hard, the temptation would be to take money at all costs. Don't, because in the long run it could really easily cost you your business. I would also say educate yourself on what type of investor you need, and that seems simple too, but I can tell you right now, I've had so many people come and talk to me about, oh my gosh, I really want some venture money. You're not even, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Believe me, you don't, you don't. Not now, not for where your business stands at the moment. Because a lot of social entrepreneurs, to your points, it is a huge problem that you're going to solve. So a lot of people look at that as, wow, that's risky. It's gonna take me forever to get a return on my investment. So angels and angel networks who are starting to go together and giving venture capital a run for their money, I believe would be even a better resource for you because they are risk as their game, they know. And also there tend to be a lot of women and women are community minded. Some men are too, I know, I'm not saying you aren't, but just in natural, it just seems that, there's a lot of statistics to the point that a lot of women-led companies end up impacting the communities around them overall. I like that, and that's really useful in thinking about the different forms of capital that might be out there. And Morgan, as you said, the different goals of different capital, are there any other thoughts up here maybe on different types of capital that social entrepreneurs should be looking at that maybe they haven't been in the past? I know this is like. John, you had talked about blended capital. Yeah, so there's a couple of things that I would answer that with. One is that in my work, I've seen such a broadening of participants from NGOs to foundations to others taking a sort of business and investment approach to what otherwise would have been programmatic approaches to some of the stubborn problems that we have in the build economies around the world and to support entrepreneurs and so on. And with that, I think, has come this idea of a layered capital, blended capital. I don't see any convergence as an organization out of the East Coast at New York that has done a great job of sort of teasing out what are the mechanisms and examples that we could look at to understand how does blended capital actually work. I don't think it's down to the angel investor network yet, but I'm hoping we can push that down and I have certainly been beating my tom-tom to say let's try to figure out how do we make this even more applicable to early stage financing of entrepreneurs. But I do see that there are, because of the broadening of participants coming from international NGOs, coming from foundations, coming from corporate, some corporate organizations, I think that they also have those two pockets where they put in investments, but they can also put in some of the grant funding or at least concessionary capital. And if you can put those together, coterminous with the financing, that tends to be a way of propelling young businesses forward. So that's one of the answers I'd give. I definitely agree that blended capital creates amazing opportunities and it points back to the concept that different flavors of money have different expectations in terms of do I want a negative 100% return, which is a donation, is there something in between there? And that one of the things that we have to start with for ourselves as investors, and I would say for entrepreneurs, to invite a collective conversation about as well, is with any investment it's the how much is enough for me and based on what? Am I a first generation wealth holder and I need to make sure that my kids are gonna have money for college? Or is it that I've achieved my this is enough for me number and I therefore want to prioritize building wealth for communities who have not had that opportunity and therefore I might choose to distribute the profit that comes from something in a different way. So it's not saying that we have to back off from saying we can't make profit or profits not good or you don't wanna be efficient, but let's think more thoughtfully about how do we wanna distribute that based on the objectives. So to give an example of that, one of the companies we've supported is called Navajo Power, which is building utility scale solar for the Navajo Nation, and then also creating off grid solar for local residents. And in that context, we knew if they had gone to traditional kind of venture debt, probably at the time would have cost around 12%. And we were comfortable that this group of investors involved doing more like 2%. And we thought about that 10% is what we called the mission delta, right? Which was the difference between what the market rate would have been and what these investors were comfortable with and made sure that those funds were specifically designated for direct benefit of Navajo Nation members. So to make sure that the benefit was broader than just the entrepreneurs who founded it. It is a majority-native-owned company, but the idea of saying it can't even be that small group. Really thinking about the nation as a whole. And it was saying that maybe 12% is the right rate, but 12% to whom, right? Who actually needs the money at that moment? Now in a different set of actors, it might be different, right? And that's a slice of capital. There's other slices of capital that's gonna come in at more traditional rates. But that's where I think we have to take a moment for ourselves to proactively make that choice. Is this, what is the return that I need as an investor? And if I'm an entrepreneur, what are different types of returns that I might wanna offer to people who have different motivations, right? And to be open to the idea of multiple motivations being part of a capital stack, which I think eventually leads us to measurement, right? Like how are we measuring and switching, or I'd say expand ROI to be not only return on investment, but really as we've been talking about return on impact and what type and what questions. And I think it is so easy for us to say, oh gosh, there's gonna be a one-size-fit-all, but we all know there is not one-size-fit-all, really, at all. Thank you, thank you. And I like that thinking about the blended capital and the different motivations of different investors is useful. So one quick note is that I have just a couple questions left, if you have questions for our Q and A, please write them out, and we have some people who will pick them up if you raise your hand. So my, I wanna move us towards actionable steps. I wanna moving forward, you know? So I wanna hear from each of you what advice you would give to social entrepreneurs right now in this context that we started this whole session with. Okay, well I think I said a couple of them, so I'll reiterate, survive is the first one. The second is don't be a retread of an idea, try to be additional in the value proposition you're putting forward. Our experience at Miller Center and my experience as an investor is that there is no business model that can't use improvement, so definitely take advantage of the enterprise growth services and other resources that are out there. The final point I would say is you have to focus on the justifiable ask. And so swirling around this session has been, there's different capital vehicles, it's not all just about equity or safe notes or something else. Know exactly that the promise that you're making to your prospective investor is one that your business model allows you to meet or deliver. So that would be a piece of advice I would just, that's a loaded question or a loaded statement. So you gotta really think deeply about your justifiable ask, what the promise is that you're making and that you can deliver back, otherwise we'll all fail because we don't have reliable returns from impact investors. And I would just absolutely agree with all of that and I was really lucky to get to be a co-founder of Tonic with John and just learn so much from your experience and I hope that the entrepreneurs in the audience make sure to bother him because he's a tremendous coach and just has wonderful experience and particularly in the context of knowing all these different structures and think it's a really important point. But it does often take that type of experience to really be able to navigate. Exactly. I think one of the things I certainly know in having my time as being a young woman CEO, often being deathly terrified to share when things were going wrong and feeling like I wasn't gonna get a second chance and that I couldn't admit to anybody and just had a lot of tearful nights in hotel rooms to then smile the next day and go back to the conference. And I think it's really important to know if you're not transparent people can't help you and that one of the things particularly entrepreneurs often in times of challenge will kind of be less communicative and if anything that's the time to be more communicative that we've had entrepreneurs when they make sure to be more communicative they're letting us know weekly, bi-weekly just that short update of what's happening the more we know the more we can help you. And if we don't know what's happening we can't help you. And I think that's the hardest thing as an investor's perspective if someone comes to us saying you know what we've got two weeks of cash okay what was happening two months ago right that we weren't having this conversation and often it's that personal fear. And I totally respected I get it I've been there but just you have to lean into trust at some point and know that people are going to be impressed by your problem solving ability the way that you are wrestling with challenge because no one expects it to be easy they want to see what do you do in the face of challenge right that's what people are going to step up and want to support but you have to communicate. So funny I've lived through some of that personally so I know we're wounded. Yes trust I think is something that is so desperately missing right now in every system that we have in every situation so I would say trust. And what that means is trust yourself and that leads to humility and curiosity which means know what you know and know what you don't know and when you don't know something blind spot make sure that you have a teammate or you have a mentor on whom you can lean and be open and ask for the help and get the information you need and to your point there's nothing worse when you're doing your quarterly reports or whatever add numbers because that's so tactical but really that actually helps uncover so many situations early on before it becomes a mack track heading into a big brick wall and then lastly I would say collaborate. I think the more social entrepreneurs can gather together and or perhaps your ideas gone as far as it can but you know someone else who is missing what you provide go for it join join arms safe you know there's there's power in numbers and then share whatever knowledge you have everyone always says oh knowledge is power yeah it is but only when you share it otherwise you're just a silo and we know what that looks like we don't wanna do that this is not a repeat we have a chance to get it right. I like the theme here that the advice is social it is get help whether it's advice on your business model or whether it's collaboration whether it's trust trusting others to help you with your work I think that that is a great great take away before we move into Q&A as promised I wanted to come back as the curators of this social entrepreneurship track that we are embarking on with this session what are you most excited about which session which panel which ideas are you most excited about for this I know there's so many but maybe just a couple one or two John we can start with you. Okay well the one I'm most excited about is Morgan's but I'm gonna leave that for her so my answer would be the pitch the entrepreneur pitch sessions because I learned so much from what the entrepreneurs are proposing that and there's a number of them scattered around the content over these three days so that's my excitement. There's two tomorrow I'm really excited about the first is at 10 30 a.m. and it's on the concept of justice innovation of how entrepreneurs are looking to address the incredible inequities and efficiencies of the criminal justice system and that this morning actually the Justice Innovation Prize gave out a million dollars spread over five entrepreneurs and really excited to see how the justice tech and justice innovation field is growing and spreading so I'd say in kind of broader trends to watch in social entrepreneurship we're excited to see more entrepreneurs taking on those challenges and there's gonna be a couple great ones that are presenting tomorrow morning and then at 1 30 we're doing a panel on who decides matters and sharing three participatory funding models including my colleague Leslie Lindo for the Olamina Fund for US Community Development Village Capital and then so basically we span from grants to debt to equity through three different entities and sharing how is it that these groups have been setting up community-based decision-making models and what are some of the challenges and opportunities they've found on that way so I'm excited for that at 1 30 p.m. tomorrow. I was gonna say the criminal justice one which is gonna be fantastic because one of our portfolio companies I'm biased Rasa who is a female led company that does expungement of records and it's a perfect example of that return on impact and return on investment because that's generational change goes on and on and on and then I would say to the pitchfests and also who decides matters. Great, thank you so much. All right, now let's head into your questions. I have a few of them right here. So let's start with this and it's a question about how higher education might be able to better prepare the next generation for social impact but specifically what are the skills, experiences and learning that you believe young folks need to enter the sector and then how might higher education help? I feel like you should get the answer back. Well, to me where I'm sitting actually for the next generation it's we know that they care so deeply that students entering into university now or just leaving their secondary education. The next generation's care so deeply about social impact and yet at least where I sit in the middle of the country it's not really a conversation and so so many of them just don't even know that careers exist, that the whole field exists and that there are opportunities to have really enriching fulfilling and market rate careers in the field and so that's part of what I love in working with students is just the thought at the end of the course or semester after meeting a guest speaker just saying I didn't even know that existed. That's what I think is the first step at least to begin with. And I don't know if anyone's had gotten an MBA since 2010 but my husband John runs a company Poets and Quants and it's the leading business school site on the word it's like the Bible and what's fascinating to me and sad is when people go in there's a stat 81% want to run a socially good they wanna run a purpose driven company and then by the time they get through year two that number drops to 18%. So we need to stop that and we also frankly need to figure out ways to fund as we've been discussing these social entrepreneurs so that people that have the idea in the heart they can actually start solving those really big problems. So education for sure and you write visibility as well. And any thoughts for the two of you on specific skills, experiences or learning that would be useful to become a social entrepreneur and go into the field? I think the biggest thing is just experience period and that's where I think there's not nearly enough in terms of paid internships and kind of learning opportunities out in the world. I wanna shout out Kathy Clark here in the case I three program at Duke which has been one of the nation's leaders for a number of years but there should be so many more of them and that that's where I think we've really struggled. A lot of us as impact investment firms were small firms as well. We would happily take on more interns if it was a little easier to do. So there's these two sides that haven't quite figured out how to connect and I would really love if universities were more proactive in making that available because then when I sit on the perspective of being a hire there's just nothing that can substitute for actual experience in the field versus the classroom. So I'm attached with Santa Clara University but I also teach a course at Northeastern's San Francisco campus, Northeastern University on entrepreneurship and impact investing and I see the same thing as you Allison in terms of the kind of the willingness and the excitement that students have for themselves wanting to have a pursuit in their own careers when they get out of college to that fits that moral hunger as we heard yesterday. A specific answer I would say are two things. When I engage with these students I'm trying to give them a reduced fear of flying meaning I want to dispel the high priesthood nomenclature and vocabulary and Jingo and all that stuff so that they understand how does investing and entrepreneurship, how do they work and how do they come together and what are the expectations of each side. So I want to have them feel comfortable about being an entrepreneur or being a social entrepreneur. The other thing is finance. I do find that they are not as strong on the actual measurement of cash flow, working capital needs and finance that you have to have especially in a thinly funded early stage startup. So don't be afraid, go do it but be smart about what the decisions that you're making can serve capital. I think that's all really useful and Morgan to highlight what you said about experience. At the Sorenson Impact Institute we do have a venture, well we bring students into all the work that we do so that they're paid internships where they can get that experience and I know a number of universities have that out there and it's growing and that's really something to take advantage of and I think more and more we'll start doing it as well. Let's look at the next question which I love and this one is specifically for you Morgan but I'd like everyone to chime in if you'd like. Can you expand more please on the concept of mission delta? How do you define it and maybe one more example of its application? I'm laughing because we made it up. I mean that's what happens in impact investing all the time. So I wouldn't say that it's like a term of art that we certainly would welcome other people to use it and from that perspective I don't have a specific like debt example of someone who's done it the same way that I know of but I think the general idea what I do have a lot of examples of are investors and entrepreneurs coming to the table together to have that honest conversation about who needs what and what does that mean about how we organize the future. So another project E.B. Preck that you say permanent real estate cooperative which is on the sunny side of the bay I live in Oakland and essentially that has been purchasing real estate for collective ownership and that had one of the most it's public you can find on their website one of the most intellectually honest offering documents I'd ever seen that I absolutely love that essentially said in terms of the dividends that are gonna go to investors and the community returns that are gonna happen we are undergoing an extensive community design process to determine what's gonna happen in these spaces that we're developing and that means we can't tell you what's gonna happen that's the whole point you know in that for instance they took over a space called Esther's Orbit Room which had been a historic jazz club in West Oakland and in figuring out should it be a juice bar or an alcohol bar well those have very different margins right but if they do decide to make the decision that hey we don't want more alcohol in our community that is gonna have an impact on investor returns and what they basically said in their offering document is your mission Delta there is you're coming along for the ride and that you explicitly know that this is gonna be community governed decisions around how returns are gonna be distributed so I think we have a lot of great cases of that but I would certainly welcome people to use that mission Delta concept of essentially rather than saying one thing that you'll often hear me get a little stumbly about but purposefully I really try not to use the term market rate because when we say that we're like which market are you talking about like the one where we lock up people for profit and we destroy the environment like that's not the market I'm hanging out in you know and that's not the market that I wanna build and that means that I don't wanna necessarily peg to this kind of arbitrary standard I'm aware of it you know so I'm managing portfolios that we've done over gosh was it 100 investments like 200 million that we certainly are aware of how we measure up to the traditionally established benchmarks but that's not the starting place right and I think that that's where even thinking about a mission Delta I'm troubled still I think we still need to innovate more in the concept because it's assuming an anchor which is grounded in a very different economy so I think we need to continue to think more starting from that how much is enough what do we need what do communities need how does everyone get their needs fulfilled within that how different types of positionality will put us in that conversation differently but that's some of the conversations that we're trying to have as both individuals and institutions of wealth. Can I just real quick question? So with that and I love that that leads me to wonder once you set that it can change and that's another thing I think that people realize it's like you set this initial idea and this ground rule in the context of knowing what the situation is as you know it how often or when would you think that people would should be kind of checking it out and taking a look at when they should change or when they should be looking to decide hey is this still on track or do we want to move it a little bit change a little bit. I think it's mostly I want to make sure I answer your question but I also have a different starting point. I think what your question is making me reflect on is just a recognition that where you start is really essential and some institutions have less flexibility than others. So I want to note in the context of some of the foundations that I work with you have incredible social change missions they need that 5% payout right. There's no flexibility there. This is not saying and that might mean that certain types of investments are not right for certain types of investors. So let's what we try to do in our practice at Candid is that we take the how much is enough conversation that's the constraint right. So often for a foundation it's 8% a year. That's what they got to do to be able to cover their expenses and to be able to make the payout. I can take that constraint and then maximize the impact as much as possible. And that means that there might be times where I could choose an 8% product instead of a 12% product or I do choose the 15% product but I know why I'm doing it right. And I'm really keeping both those impact and those financial goals in mind. It's a delicate balance. I think that's often the feeling of like impact investors and social entrepreneurs. We have to work harder than they do in traditional markets because we got to balance all this stuff. But I think it's important to know are you flexible and with what portion of your capital and when are times that you really can't be and I want to really respect that too right. I think we need to make sure we have space for all of that in the context of impact investing. Thanks. And Morgan going back to what you were saying before if I understand it correctly seems like the mission Delta really goes back to the conversation we were having about keeping prosperity closer to where the value is created. And so in the example you gave earlier it's about maybe you didn't make the 12% you made the 2% returns but that 10% went to the community that was the whole purpose. And so keeping the value closer to where it's being created. Is that, did I understand that correctly? That's absolutely correct. And I think it's also being clear maybe one, a different way to think about did I achieve my financial goal is did I achieve the stated objective? If I should, if I'm trying to make 2%, let me make an honest 2%, if I'm trying to make 12, let me make 12, right? But sometimes for some institutions the uncertainty is the problem. And I think that often as investors if we're looking at for instance a debt fund if it's a five or 6% return that's not the linchpin. The linchpin is can I get from negative 100 to just the return, right? But that's where the hard work comes in. So I think that's where we wanna think on both of those accesses which is where is the value going? And then also what degree of risk are we willing to allow in the conversation to ensure community driven and more innovative approaches at times?  There's a lot of chatter these days about measurement like ESG and definition of fiduciary duty and you can't have fiduciary duty and cater to a mission delta is my interpolation of kind of what we said today and what I read in the papers don't be dissuaded by that. I think this sort of blowback about ESG the blowback about, oh, this is just a woke stuff is just noise until you win. And I think that this is a undercurrent a groundswell that has been moving for quite a while and I've never been more optimistic that in fact with the broadening of the participants with the broadening of the sort of consciousness that people have with the measurements coming in in terms of disclosure California is now mandating some disclosures about what you're doing with exploitation of labor or what you're doing with extraction of resources that are unsustainable that will become more known and in that light of day I think the right things will happen.


Welcome to the European Central Bank podcast bringing you insights into the world of economics and central banking. My name is Michael Steen and in this episode we are marking the first two decades of Europe's single currency, the Euro. It's been two decades with two very different stories. The first saw the peak of a nearly 30 year upswing in the global financial cycle and the second 10 years saw the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Let's first go back to the very early days of the Euro with this audio clip. On the first of January at zero hour the introduction of Eurobank notes and coin mark not only the completion of Economic and Monetary Union, which is a crucial achievement in itself, but one of the major, if not the, major step forward in the history of European integration. I am convinced that the first of January 2002 will appear in the history books in all our countries and beyond as the start of a new era in Europe. That was Wynn Dersenberg, the first ECB president speaking in 2002. The Euro was launched as a currency on the first of January 1999, but initially it existed on bank statements and electronically. In 2002 when Mr. Dersenberg was speaking in our clip was the year that the Euro banknotes and coins actually entered into circulation. So what was it like back then? My first guest today is Erke Leikenden. When he joined the Finnish Parliament he was the youngest MP at the time. Subsequently he served as Finnish Finance Minister. He was also European Commissioner and he served as ECB governing council member as the governor of the Bank of Finland. So with all of that experience he has an insider's perspective on the development of the single currency, the relative calm that we spoke of in the first decade and then the turbulence of the second. Erke, welcome and thanks for joining us on the podcast. Thank you. Now Finland was one of the group of the first countries that adopted the Euro as their currency in 1999. At the time you were European Commissioner for Budget. What was the atmosphere like back then and what did this moment mean for Europe and what did it mean for Finland? For Finland they joined the EU meant that Finland gets a seat around the table where the decisions are taken. Normally the history of Finland had been decided above the heads of the Finnish people. Now we became part of the European institutions. Finland wanted to be at the core everywhere including economic and monetary union. So the decision was taken to be able to guarantee that we have had influence everywhere. At the time the debate in Finland about joining was it was it a difficult one or an easy one? We were able to discuss and there was also paper done by the academics which said of course that we can join but we must have flexibility in the economy. We must have a buffer so we can adjust ourselves because you can't use exchange rates. But it was not very difficult. Of course later when the crisis came discussed and remerged but now again it's pretty stable. So support for Europe is very high in Finland. Now as we discussed or mentioned just now the first ten years of the Euro were fairly calm and periods of low inflation. Then in 2007-2008 we had what we call the great financial crisis hitting. It started as a financial crisis affecting banks and later developed into a full-blown sovereign debt crisis which markets even began to speculate about the breakup of the Euro. Talk us through that. What were the key moments for you? 2007 summer was of course the first important moment because then the turbulence in the market started, the liquidity evaporated. Some banks were closing their investment funds and I must say that then Zaku Tussier who was then the vice-president had the instincts right. He felt it can be big, important. A little later they also followed. They gave liquidity to the banks because they saw the difficulty. England didn't consider the situation so serious. That was like the first La Première. Then second big phase was of course then in 2007-2008. We had the informal ecofin where the ministers of finance and governors took part in Nice, France. It was by the way chaired by French finance minister, Christen Lagarde. We had a great dinner on Friday evening when May came back at night. Zaku Tussier then president of ECB said we need a meeting. It was over the midnight and that what is the reason there's problem in the United States with the Lehman brothers. We asked is it serious and he gave a verse which showed that it's very serious. That was last let's say that the weekend when it all started Monday Lehman brothers went under. The markets reacted very strongly and we didn't know when we get it back, come again. For that weekend it's something we never forget. I can imagine. At the time there was a problem with a very significant bank in the United States. What were your fears about how it would affect the Euro area? We didn't know then because even in America people thought that it's only one bank and Lehman brothers was not a huge bank. They thought that it's contained risk crowd welcome under control but when the confidence disappears the change can be very fast and it's a price all. At the time also it was not European bank. Perhaps people thought that it doesn't hit us so early. Of course history tells another story. There's the quote by Mario Draghi speaking London in 2012 and as you already said that that was a key moment in the crisis and you have these three words whatever it takes but can you explain a bit why why that helped turn the turn around the situation that there was this moment where people were openly speculating about some countries possibly leaving the Eurozone. How did that phrase help? The phrase helped but also actions taken. Of course it was Mario Draghi's communication was remarkably clear but equally important was during the following government council meetings decisions were taken what it means. What kind of actions ECB is ready to take so you need those two together. We now fast forward to today and banks are now supervised by the ECB as part of the single supervisory mechanism as part of this banking union which isn't quite complete yet but is still being built. That said it doesn't feel like the world is that certain. I mean we have trade wars, tariffs, Brexit. How do you see it today and how strong do you think your areas today to withstand shocks? Of course these trade wars have a very negative impact on the world growth. If there's something where economists agree it is that trade trade is critical for growth in the long term. We know now that they also downsized that not all have been have been winning with those. We haven't perhaps paid enough attention to these areas where just have been lost but anyhow all in all trade trade is critical so that's one issue. What about your area? Yes, the central bank is stronger. We have been able to create monetary policy and monetary policy tools to be acting but of course when rates are very low the capacity to move below early ones is more limited. What we need to do now are two things. One is that we need to create a complete banking union and make capital market union which means that the risks in your area would be shared by private investors. If capital markets are free they function cross border and risk are shared also by investors. You don't need taxpayers there and there we must go deep and be very firm there. Second issue of course is that we need also more input from the fiscal policies. In those countries where there's margin where there are possibilities of course fiscal policies should also be used. So all these three elements monetary policy, deep financial market union and active role for fiscal policy are needed in the future. Now can I ask you also to benefit from your long experience European affairs if you take your crystal ball and you say well we've had 20 years of the euro now and you try and look ahead to the next 20 years. What's your sense where will the euro be in another 20 years? If you asked me 20 years ago what will happen during the next 20 years I would not have been able to guess and I don't know what word will take us but I have I have a lot of confidence on the decisions making us in the future. They will analyze the incoming information take the decisions which are necessary within the mandate of the ECP but we can't possibly see where next crisis come. Normally it doesn't come from the direction you expect so just be ready ready for anything and be prepared. Erki thank you very much for sharing your insights with us. Thank you. In contrast to Erki's first-hand account our next guest can offer a slightly different perspective on the euro's development over the last 20 years that of an observer from the outside looking in. Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times a position he has held since 1996 though he's been looking at economics issues for considerably longer than that. I had a chat with him recently during our annual research conference where he was chairing a panel on 20 years of the euro. Here's how the conversation went. Martin you wrote earlier this year a column about the anniversary and you said that it had been the currency had been through a traumatic adolescence but in the end you concluded it's doomed to succeed can you just recap a little bit your thoughts? Very briefly I regarded this as a very risky project from the beginning producing a single currency among what are in other respects above all fiscally still sovereign states very different economies was a gamble it's obvious in the first decade from 1999 to 2009 it looked as though it was going very well risked breads on debt reduced inflation converged growth was very strong in the periphery basically fine but then in the following 10 years after the global financial crisis then morphed into a eurozone crisis turned out that a lot of that was sort of built on sand there have been huge mistakes made in important countries with private sector lending it wasn't fiscally driven there were severe competitiveness problems that had emerged and this morphed into a sovereign debt crisis from the financial crisis a banking crisis as well and that of course inevitably became a political crisis nonetheless the immense effort and difficulty important reforms were made the creation of the european stability mechanism the whatever it takes position of the ECB quantitative easing and of course an integrated supervision mechanism a way of dealing with banks further ideas of reform so it did get through it but which is the last point it's not going to be easy there's still lots of problems and of course it is doomed to succeed because if it fails i think the whole european project is in question although one of the strengths of the crisis that you've talked about of course is that the political will that exists and you told a nice story about being in the states in 2012 talking to hedge fund managers who are betting that the whole thing's going to go fall apart yes a number of my columns in which i wrote i think of one in particular which i wrote that people underestimated the commitment to this was a response to exactly that a dinner i have had some very very senior wall street people in which basically the consensus was this couldn't possibly survive it was just this was never a very good idea and the politics would tear it apart and i argued on the contrary that first of all it's very costly to leave that's absolutely clear and secondly that you should never underestimate the commitments of the really powerful nations above all germany to keep this going so they would do enough always to ensure that it was kept going that's what i argued then i think i will be inclined to think that's still true therefore i do believe it's likely to survive but it won't be optimal or close to it the problem is yes it might survive but at the same time corroding progressively the commitment of the peoples of europe to this and then at some point you never know when it might actually fall to pieces and unless the unless there now this is this is very very difficult they're essentially too linked problems they have to fix either fix the aggregate demand problem in a big way which means i think giving themselves real capacity to use fiscal policy and adjustment mechanisms that really work which means actually let's be quite clear if you're going to have two percent inflation in the euro zone that means some countries should have three or four which countries should have three or four well obviously the countries where domestic demand is deficient whereas domestic demand most deficient germany in the netherlands is massively below potential output and this is no longer easily supportable in the world so their demand has to grow this is sort of self-evident this is part of the adjustment mechanism and the aggregate demand problem and then the other thing you have to do i think there's no doubt if you don't do that to the extent you don't do that there will have to be some form of fiscal transfer and mutual insurance countries cannot be left quite as much on their own as they have been that will of course require probably some mechanism for debt restructuring which don't yet fully exist there has to be a deal on this risk-sharing aspect of the system in other words that there's a macro demand problem a competitiveness problem and a risk sharing problem and they have to be solved together if they can be solved and there's obviously lots of technical detail here i think it will survive pretty well if they aren't resolved it might survive perfectly well but i think future very severe crises are certain that's rather glumy prognosis i emphasize that i think it will survive but you but the question is will it survive happily and successfully or will it survive rather miserably and grumpily because people feel they just can't get out of it i feel we are a bit closer to the latter than is safe i mean of course it's not true everywhere but there's a lot of unhappiness it's obvious and that has to be dealt with you can't survive indefinitely if you don't make peoples of europe believe in this is good for them christine legard just said this i think and she's absolutely right and in that show then what what is your what is your answer then in that what is the big political bargain that you think needs to be struck here i view the logic of the euro system in the end is towards a greater degree of political union it's part of it i'm not talking about tomorrow but if i were asked in 2050 if it still exists what would i expect it to look like well i would expect it to look more like a federation and that i think is where it will have to end up how it will get there i don't know will it get there i don't know but i think if it doesn't further really very very difficult crises are inescapable thank you very much martin my next guest is syria and gino she works here at the ecbs communications department and is a behavioral economist as part of her tasks she studies institutional trust and specifically trust in the ecb syria thanks a lot for joining us on the podcast thank you for having me now we're here celebrating 20 years of the euro but you're also actually the youngest guest we have on today's podcast so i i want to ask you a bit about your personal experience of the launch of the euro probably when the bank notes entered circulation can you remember where you were and what happened sure sure it was during my christmas holidays so i was 11 i was spending christmas holidays with my family in the south of italy in this small town where my grandparents used to live and i remember vividly that on the first january everyone was rushing to the atms to actually the only atm in town to withdraw these banknotes this christ banknote and they were showing to us to the kids and we were so happy everyone was so enthusiastic it was like being in a big party were you old enough to get pocket money at the time i suppose if you're going from lyra there was a into nominal terms it did you think i'm getting less and do you have plans for how to spend the new euros well i i received 10 000 lira so five euro more or less and i planned my first purchase in euro very carefully of course go and tell us what it was yes so i wanted it to be very special so i bought what was more special for me at that time so i bought harry potter stickers that's the first thing wow very good now let's turn a bit to your research i mentioned that you research trust and can you tell us first of all what we actually mean when we talk about trust in institutions and why should a central bank care about public trust as you can imagine since you were dealing with an absurd concept trust in institution has been defined in many different ways now the definition that i will propose today is trust in an institution is the belief that in our case a central bank will deliver on its mandate but also by doing so it will take into account ethical considerations so there are two aspects here to be considered the first one is the central bank must be competent must be must have the expertise in house to deliver on the mandate and this is actually what financial markets think as of as trust so they equate in a sense trust and credibility but in our research we have seen that the public needs more to trust an institution such as a central bank they also need to know that the central bank is acting in a fair manner in a nautical way so there's also a component of values that they take into account when deciding whether to trust or not the central bank this general public measure of trust is very interesting and brings us on to what actually happened in the crisis and when we talked a bit about the crisis years with airki and martin what has it done to the ECB in terms of levels of trust and where are we now when we look at institutional trust we use data from the euro barometer survey which is run by the commission it's been run for the last 20 years so we have a perfect time window to consider now the ECB started with very high levels of trust but of course the financial crisis disrupted that now it must be noted that trust in ECB was not the only one that plummeted trust in the european commission in the european parliament followed the same pattern this pattern also extended to national institutions to private and public institutions in the us and also in europe and around the world so it was really a systemic crisis going on so and so there's been a general trend downwards is there any sign of this picking up yes actually in the last three years we see that the recovery is starting so today actually according to the last data from the euro barometer trust in ECB is at 43 percent now you mentioned euro barometer data which as you said is a nice long time series available they've also been measuring all along where how europeans feel about the euro and the support for the euro tell us a little bit about where that is and what the trend has been there well support for the euro actually hit record with the last survey so 76 percent of people support the euro so more than three out of four people it's interesting to see how the crisis could not dent support for the euro so while trust in all institutions went down support for the euro slightly of course decline but not that much this is really interesting because i mean the 76 percent is of course across the whole euro area so that's an aggregate number if you start looking at individual countries i hear cited very often is Greece and we hear about i mean obviously Greece went through a very difficult adjustment what actually happened to levels of support for the euro there and where is it now for Greece so Greece today has a level of support for euro which is 70 percent so it's pretty high and even if we look at the lowest support which is recorded unfortunately in my country Italy we're still talking about 65 percent of support the countries are converging and instead if you look at the top three or top four even better you find very diverse countries you have Slovenia and Estonia which are recent euro adopters and then you have Portugal which was hit by the financial crisis hard they're all at the top yeah all at the top and the fourth one is Finland which is a country with a different story in a sense and different culture so you really see diversity there and the countries are converging in this support for the euro well that's that's good news think one thing you also looking at then we talked a bit about how trust in institutions fell including the ECB so if you were to plot and i know you've done this a chart of trust in the ECB versus support for the euro you see it tell me what that looks like there's a sort of divergence isn't there's a big discrepancy starting with the financial crisis so before that moment support for the euro and trust in the ECB were very close but then this gap widened now it's closing a little bit but still we are like 30 percent there is a 30 percent gap between trust in the ECB and support for the euro and that's something that literature might suggest we should worry about well i mean the determinants of support for the euro and trust in ECB are very different the euro is not just a currency the euro is a symbol is an ideal trust in the ECB instead depends much more on economic factor on something that is variable so of course humans are fallible institutions are fallible but the euro represents an idea it taps into the european identity of people so it's really something else why should the central bank worry about trust as something that it measures there are three main reasons the first one is linked to the transmission mechanism of monetary policy so how the actions or the decisions taken by the ECB then translate into the real economy we have evidence that higher trust in the ECB better anchors the inflation expectations of normal people like consumers small medium enterprise owners to the target of the ECB so inflation close but below two percent over the medium term in the euro area trust in ECB better allows institution to deliver on its mandate just to clarify that you're saying that if the trust is higher tends to be higher then it's easier for the central bank to reach its inflation target absolutely because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy if people think and trust ECB that it will reach its target then they will start acting like this is the truth this will actually change how the economy is working so inflation will align to the target more easily fascinating the second reason has to do with the fact that the central bank is a supranational institution and an independent central bank now we know that an independent central bank met a deliver on the mandate and this independence is balanced by an accountability framework that we have with the european parliament but at the same time this is not sufficient we also need the trust of the public because otherwise if trust plummets what happens is that people might pressure their politicians to restrict the space of maneuvering of the ECB so maybe changing the mandate eliminating some instruments so public trust shields the ECB from these political attacks or an essential bank central bank of course and the third reason instead this time it's really connected to the status of the ECB as a european institution of course trust in the ECB is gonna feed into trust for the european project as a whole so this is another reason why we should really care about trust in ECB thank you very much siria thanks well that brings us to the end of this episode i want to thank airki lickenen martin wolf and siria angino for joining the conversation and giving us their insights do also look in the show notes for links to related papers and publications from the ECB and we'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts for future episodes via social media you can use direct messages and comments you've been listening to the european central bank podcast with michael steen if you like what you've heard please subscribe and leave us a review until next time thanks for listening


I just watched the for the first time the 1938 film Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. Errol Flynn. Wow, what'd you think? It was awesome. Cool huh? It was one of the probably earliest films I've ever seen. It was three dates Casablanca. Oh yeah. It's like same director as Casablanca by the way. I've never seen the whole film. I've only seen highlights from it. It's cool to see the history and how this film and how differently they did stuff in 1938. That's almost coming up on a hundred years. Isn't that nuts? Yeah, and Errol Flynn was the man. Oh yeah. He was the Tom Cruise of the day back then. Even bigger. A lot of charisma coming from Errol Flynn. Yeah. And so it was really super.  I did that with Inherit the Wind. Have you ever seen that? Oh my goodness. I watched it because I can't believe I had never seen it. Spencer Tracy is, if you want to see somebody who was doing natural acting before Brando and Method, it's Spencer Tracy and he's so good, but the Pasadena Playhouse is doing the play. So there's auditions for it in the middle of the month. There's three different roles that I could play in that thing. I showed it to Andrani. She was blown away at how contemporary and relevant that film is from 1960 to today. It feels like it was written today. It's amazing. So oldies are awesome. Hey, welcome back to our Stupid Directs with Corbin. I'm an oldie. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter for more. She's kind of thick of a spate of follow us. What qualifies you to be an oldie technically? Old age. I don't know. And today we got another creative video. This is a 10 Lightning Fast Stump Stumpings from Emma Stoney. I remember when I stumped your mom. Yeah, I was just gonna say I know a lot of women out there who really like men who like really fast stumping. And we have seen the compilations of Emma Stoney doing different things including stumping as well. So, but this is another one he was obviously well known for. And these are just his stumpings. And I did in the fan reaction to the win of CSK. I said the end thing was Emma Stoney. It wasn't Emma Stoney. He was on the team, but it was it was a different. Oh, the winning shot? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I thought it was Emma Stoney, but it wasn't. I didn't know who did it. People were very quick to correct me there. I bet they were. But so this is I would say that Emma Stoney was known for stumping, but he was known for literally everything. Literally everything. All around player. Yeah. So here we go. This is Hitesh and today I present you 10 lightning fast jumpings of Emma Stoney. Do watch till the end. Okay, okay. What happened? No, like, I know, I know, but it's happened so fast. Yeah, that's lightning fast. Like he catches them. It's almost right immediate. Like he can't even react to put his foot back. Wow. You got to have the reflexes up. Oh my goodness. You can't get a lot closer than that. That's about as close as it gets. Like I couldn't even see that being like safe. What is that? Is that a person? I think so. I don't even think I don't even move his arms. Wow. Again, I don't see him move. Like I just see like cat. I don't even see a move. Oh, dead to right. Took that big step forward. Sachin to take revenge against. Whoa. After a six. That this time he did that rule. Bye-bye. I think he waited and then the guy said it. He said, bye-bye. Like he waits. Yeah. Yep. I never see him move his hands. It's instant. Wow. I cannot see it in real time, man. Think. Oh, that's something I just realized as well. It has to be on the ground, not just break the line. Yeah. Not very easy with the ball turns. It comes between the back and back. I like seeing it from the side. How did he not get back? It's cool, but then we'll have to know. He lost the ball. Yeah, but he's got enough on it. He's amazing. Absolutely amazing, Shadafreeti. What happened? I'm confused. There was this. Oh, it's like their answer. Gotcha. Gotcha. So they showed the four and then they showed the after. So is that one of the rules for a batsman? So you have the wickets and then you have the space between the wickets and that line. Does the batsman, can they stand anywhere they want to stand? Do they have to straddle the line? Do all I know is if they're outside the line, obviously they have to get back across before the catcher hits a wicket and stumps them. Yeah. My question, and if you've told us to this before, forgive me for not remembering, is when a batsman is taking their position, are there rules? Because for example, the only thing that we can approximate this to for us that we know is there are rules of, there's a batter's box. You can stand in certain places up, back, side, in, but you have to be in. If you put your foot out of the batter's box, that's you can't do that. So I would like to know, does a batsman, every single one of them seem to be stepping forward and we're over the line when they were going to strike the ball? I think maybe that's the rule. You have to be over the line to strike the ball. Yeah. That would make sense because otherwise, why would you ever put your foot over the line? Yeah, it's like you can't put your foot on the, in baseball. Right. So my suspicion is you could probably stand anywhere, but you have to be, you have to have both feet over the line if you hit it, and then get back if you miss it. Right? I think so. Help, help. I want to know. I'm pretty sure that's, but yeah, he's lightning fast. Oh, it's, it's, I mean, it's similar, but not the same as a catcher in baseball and the reflexes they need to do a lot of different things. Same reflexes, just different use of them. Yeah. But yeah, same hand-eye coordination. It's like to throw to, to first, to throw, wherever obviously the person's going, or obviously to. But it's also completely different. It's also like an infielder too, because catchers seldom ever have to catch a ball that's bouncing that far in front of them. Yeah. It's a whole other animal with that. Yeah. But yeah, he's, he's really good at cricket. Yeah. In case anybody wants to know. Will you be in LA when the Knight Riders are playing? Because we will be. And Ms. Tony, will you be there? My thoughts is, because last time we, not the last time, because obviously Florida was before India. Florida was before India. That was, so we've seen two cricket matches. Yeah. The first, Florida was the summer of 2012. It was the first year of the channel. It was 2019. Yeah. It was the first year of the channel. Yep. Summer, because we were in India in 2020. And Steph was pregnant. But we did a, I remember, because we did a red eye. Yeah. We saw the game. Right. And then we left the next morning. The next morning. So we were gone for maybe 24 hours. Right. Maybe. It was a, it was a real quick trip. And the game had to be stopped. Yeah. We had to be delayed because of lightning. Yeah. Didn't even get to finish it. Yep. But I'm wondering if the, because I got concessions and they had like Indian food, of course. Right. It was samosas, but it was really spicy. It was also really humid. Yes. Because it was Florida. Yeah. It won't be that here. No. So if you need humidity for a cricket match. And in here. You will not have it. It will be dry. You might be used to the heat and humidity in India because I know it's both of those. It is dry heat here. It is like an oven. So I don't know how that's going to affect your fields. 5% humidity. Yes. Yeah. As opposed to 100. The fields I would imagine are going to be kept the way NFL and MLB fields are kept up. They're going to be really nice. They'll probably have underground watering systems for them. But I'd imagine your Indian population is a lot bigger here than it is in, where was it? Where did we go? In Florida? I don't know. There's quite a few. Well, there's Indians everywhere, obviously. Yeah. We got a few million here. So we were in Miami. Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale. That's right. We were in Fort Lauderdale. I can't remember. We flew into Miami. Correct. Drove to Fort Lauderdale. It was just cheaper that way. Anyways, let us know what are the cricket videos from Amazonia or others that we can react to down below.