Examining some issues and challenges for ensuring the universal right to healthcare in Brazil, this paper explores the findings of a government project conducted in 2003 to broaden the approach to healthcare problems in Brazil, based on dialogs between government and society that supplement institutionalized approaches to social participation in healthcare management. Starting with an overview ...

The singular focus of public debate on the "top 1 percent" of households overlooks the component of earnings inequality that is arguably most consequential for the "other 99 percent" of citizens: the dramatic growth in the wage premium associated with higher education and cognitive ability. This Review documents the central role of both the supply and demand for skills in shaping inequality, di...

An intense scholarly and public policy debate concerns the optimal design of political institutions for new democracies, particularly those facing deep ethnic or cultural cleavages. Drawing on a book-length study of political engineering in the AsiaPacific region, this paper surveys the differences between consociational and centripetal approaches to institutional design. After examining the ke...

OBJECTIVES This project aims to answer a critically important question of public policy: Does effective child support enforcement lead to a change in the incidence of abortion across the United States? METHODS Using state-level data collected from 1978–2003 from a variety of sources, we employ fixed effects regression analysis to examine whether financial security as measured by five types of...

The unplanned extension of the right to refuse treatment to the precommitment period is described in this paper. This extension of the right to refuse treatment has important public policy implications for the civil commitment process. These implications, as well as the pros and cons of the extension of the right to refuse treatment, are discussed.

Although the U.S. health care system has made remarkable advancements, it is costly and wasteful, and it leaves many people without appropriate care. The challenge for public policy is to enable consumers and taxpayers to obtain good value for their health care dollars. Achieving this objective stands the greatest chance of success if health care markets function well. To make markets work, we ...

Children under 18 are legal minors who, in South African law, are not fully capable of acting independently without assistance from parents/legal guardians. However, in recognition of the evolving capacity of children, there are exceptional circumstances where the law has granted minors the capacity to act independently. We describe legal norms for child consent to health-related interventions ...

We analyze the time series associated with web traffic for a representative set of online businesses that have suffered widely reported cyber security incidents. Our working hypothesis is that cyber security incidents may prompt (security conscious) online customers to opt out and conduct their business elsewhere or, at the very least, to refrain from accessing online services. For companies re...

Trust is a fundamentally important aspect of medical treatment relationships. Studies have established that patient trust predicts instrumental variables such as use of preventive services, adherence, and continued enrollment at least as well as satisfaction does, and is more salient for measuring the quality of ongoing relationships. Measuring trust would help to inform public policy deliberat...

The principal-agent models may be employed to elucidate central problems in interaction between principals and agents in both policy implementation and public policy-making concerning performance and remuneration. One then hits upon the double principal-agent relationships that are typical of the policy cycle, from policy-making to policy implementation and back: 1) government as principal for ...