Policy capacity focuses on the managerial and organizational abilities to inform policy decisions with sound research and analysis, and facilitate policy implementation with operational efficiency. It stems from a view of the policy process that is rational and positivistic, in which optimal policy choices can be identified, selected, and implemented with objectivity. By itself, however, policy...

Common mental disorders (CMD) contribute to overall burden of disease. The current study aimed to describe the prevalence of CMD among a sample of bus drivers and fare collectors in Greater Metropolitan Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, and investigate whether traffic conditions and conditions inside buses were associated with the outcome. This non-probabilistic sample of 1,607 worker...

BACKGROUND Health systems worldwide struggle to identify, adopt, and implement in a timely and system-wide manner the best-evidence-informed-policy-level practices. Yet, there is still only limited evidence about individual and institutional best practices for fostering the use of scientific evidence in policy-making processes The present project is the first national-level attempt to (1) map a...

"This paper attempts to describe the nature of Zambia's demographic situation, which eventually led to the formulation of a national population policy; the policy instrument; and some of the measures necessary for the effective implementation of the policy....[The] situation is characterised by three dominant features: a high rate of natural increase, massive urbanisation, and wide variations ...

The distributional impact of the public sector’s budget is a topic of enduring interest for economists and policymakers. The more recent literature on developing countries has focused almost exclusively on the expenditure side of the budget, as discussed in Chapter 2 But the few available studies on tax incidence in developing countries show that some tax policies have redistributive impacts – ...

The Farm Bill is meant to supplement and secure farm incomes, ensure a stable food supply, and support the American farm economy. Over time, however, it has evolved into a system that creates substantial health impacts, both directly and indirectly. By generating more profit for food producers and less for family farmers; by effectively subsidizing the production of lower-cost fats, sugars, and...

This article studies how public opinion is associated with the introduction of renewable energy policies in Europe. While research increasingly seeks to model the link between public opinion and environmental policies, the empirical evidence is largely based on a single case: the US. This limits the generalizability of findings and we argue accordingly for a systematic, quantitative study of ho...

This article analyzes the evolution of the participatory process in women's movements, especially those related to feminism, in the elaboration of health care policies to women in Brazil, from the 1970s until the present time. For this purpose, it is based on bibliography and on documentary analysis. The article determines the collaboration character that predominated in the beginning of the fe...

A binomial logit model is fitted to the college attendance behavior of 27,046 male high-school juniors in 1960, divided into 20 subgroups defined by student ability and family income. Tuition, high admissions standards, travel costs, and room and board costs all have significant negative effects on attendance. The highest elasticities of demand are found to occur in the low-income strata and lo...

In this partial equilibrium and static model, the impact of environmentalism on two countries’ environmental policies is presented. First, the only (indirect) way environmentalists influence the choice of pollution taxes is through a negative term in the welfare function in Home. It is defined as passive environmentalism (PE). Second, this article is a first attempt to consider domestic environ...