Related Public Policy Research Articles

Challenges for agroecology development for the building of sustainable agri-food systems

Environmental and social crises in agriculture have led to growing recognition that more ecologically sustainable and socially just food and agricultural systems are needed. This thematic number of the International Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources gathers the papers submitted to the workshop “Challenges for agroecology development for the building of sustainable agri-food systems,” an OECD Co-operative Research Programme-sponsored conference. The aim of the workshop was to promote the transition from conventional agriculture towards agroecology as a science, practice and social movement through sharing the experiences of different OECD countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United States. The main topics discussed at the workshop included i) agroecology development in OECD countries: local experiences and international collaboration; ii) agroecology as a social movement and related public policies; iii) agroecology education to promote sustainable agri-food systems; and iv) science, innovation and technologies in agroecological systems. While not a comprehensive assessment of the state of agroecology in OECD countries, this thematic number integrates diverse perspectives on some main research and policy advances and uncovers some existing gaps in agroecology practice as an approach for transitioning towards ecologically sustainable and socially just agricultural systems

COVID-19 Pandemic, Long-Term Incentives for Developing Vaccines and Infectious Disease Market: IP Law under Stress

Continents are facing an apocalyptic pandemic that pose a mortal danger to millions of its citizens. This paper seeks to address the role of intellectual property law in addressing the problem of COVID-19 pandemic. We suggest that current international IP law regime and TRIPS Agreement do not pose an insurmountable impediment to access to the successful COVID-19 vaccine. Publicly advocated fundamental reform or even the abolishment of the current IP law regime under severe information asymmetries might be counterproductive and distortive. Governments can via existing compulsory licensing, advance purchase agreements and employment of patent-pools, research subsidies, reward mechanisms and reputational sanctions take necessary steps to effectively overcome any IP barriers in ensuring access to crucial medicines/vaccines especially during a COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the current rate of medical research on COVID-19 suggests that previous vaccine R&D “failures” were driven by rather limited demand for such vaccines and where not the problem of inadequate IP-incentive stream. Furthermore, paper suggest that the current EU competition law rules on the horizontal exchange of information might be perceived as an impediment to innovate and might be temporary suspended. In addition, paper offers several substantive insights on an improved IP related public policy respond in the war against COVID-19.

GESS: a database of global evaluation of SARS-CoV-2/hCoV-19 sequences.

The COVID-19 outbreak has become a global emergency since December 2019. Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 sequences can uncover single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and corresponding evolution patterns. The Global Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2/hCoV-19 Sequences (GESS, https://wan-bioinfo.shinyapps.io/GESS/) is a resource to provide comprehensive analysis results based on tens of thousands of high-coverage and high-quality SARS-CoV-2 complete genomes. The database allows user to browse, search and download SNVs at any individual or multiple SARS-CoV-2 genomic positions, or within a chosen genomic region or protein, or in certain country/area of interest. GESS reveals geographical distributions of SNVs around the world and across the states of USA, while exhibiting time-dependent patterns for SNV occurrences which reflect development of SARS-CoV-2 genomes. For each month, the top 100 SNVs that were firstly identified world-widely can be retrieved. GESS also explores SNVs occurring simultaneously with specific SNVs of user's interests. Furthermore, the database can be of great help to calibrate mutation rates and identify conserved genome regions. Taken together, GESS is a powerful resource and tool to monitor SARS-CoV-2 migration and evolution according to featured genomic variations. It provides potential directive information for prevalence prediction, related public health policy making, and vaccine designs.

Association between short-term exposure to ambient air pollution and hospital admissions for transient ischemic attacks in Beijing, China

Numerous studies have examined the associations between air pollution and stroke. However, little is known about the associations between air pollution and transient ischemic attack (TIA). In this study, we aimed to conduct a time-series study to systematically examine the associations between hospital admissions for TIA and air pollutants. Admissions for TIA (ICD-10: G45) from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2016 were identified based on the primary diagnosis from 134 hospitals in Beijing, China. Hourly measurements of air pollutants were obtained from the National Air Pollution Monitoring System. Generalized additive models with quasi-Poisson regression were used to determine the associations for each pollutant. Additionally, stratified analysis was implemented to examine whether age, gender, temperature, and season were the potential effect modifiers. Restricted cubic spline was applied to investigate the exposure-response curve. In total, 109,975 hospital admissions for TIA were included. The positive associations were detected between PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, and CO and hospital admissions for TIA. The effects of PM2.5 and PM10 in men are stronger than in women. Additionally, the effects of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, and O3 are more pronounced on warm days than cool days. From exposure-response curves, we observe a nearly linear relationship for PM2.5, PM10, CO, and NO2. Further studies are needed to verify the association. This research contributes evidence on the association between air pollution and admissions for TIA in the low- and middle-income countries and may promote related public health policy development.

COVID‐19 Shelter‐at‐Home Orders: Impacts and Policy Responses in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence

On January 5, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020) published its first global announcement about a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. Throughout that month, globally, health experts attempted to gather more data to better understand the nature of the mysterious illness. On February 11, 2020, the WHO assigned the name COVID‐19 to the disease and by mid‐March, declared it a pandemic, having documented 114 countries reporting cases (Ghebreyesus, 2020). Until mid‐March, much of the daily lives of people around the world, including the lives of those experiencing intimate partner violence, remained status quo. COVID‐19 was unknown prior to this pandemic and globally medical researchers are collecting data that can help frame government policy responses for mitigating its spread until both a vaccine and an effective treatment are found. While COVID‐19 negatively impacts public health, economic, and social structures, individual stakeholder groups experience differential impacts. This article provides a preliminary assessment of how related public health policy interventions are affecting the incidence of intimate partner violence and presents several recommendations for mitigating their impact at the national and subnational levels of government.

COVID-19 Crisis Management in Luxembourg: Insights from an Epidemionomic Approach

We develop an epidemionomic model that jointly analyzes the health and economic responses to the COVID-19 crisis and to the related containment and public health policy measures implemented in Luxembourg and in the Greater Region. The model has a weekly structure and covers the whole year 2020. With a limited number of parameters, the model is calibrated to depict the pre-crisis evolution of the Luxembourg economy, and to match post-lockdown leading economic indicators and industry-specific infection curves. The nowcasting part of our analysis reveals that each week of lockdown reduces national output by about 28% (and annual GDP by 0.54%). A first peak of the infection curve was observed at the very beginning of April. If the lockdown measures had been permanent, annual GDP would have decreased by 22% in 2020, the number of COVID-19 cases would have reached zero around mid-June, and the proportion of recovered people would have reached 1.4% of the population. In an economy heavily relying on skill-intensive services, we show that the role of teleworking has been instrumental to limiting the weekly economic output loss (almost by one half) and the propagation of the virus. In the forecasting part of the analysis, we quantify the epidemiological and economic responses to gradual deconfinement measures under various public health scenarios. If the post-lockdown transmission rates could be kept constant throughout the deconfinement period, restarting all sectors would have huge effects on the economy (limiting the annual GDP loss to about 7%) and no effect on the aggregate infection curve. While it is a good time for lifting containment measures, there is also a risk that increasing the density of employees at the workplace and resuming social activities would induce a rebound in the infection curve. Preventing such a relapse is possible with PCR testing of both national and cross-border workers, and with accompanying measures such as (i) maintaining teleworking practices, (ii) reopening hotels, restaurants and cafes at half of their full capacity or with equivalent physical distancing measures and last but not least, (iii) sustaining distancing measures in social activities. Overall, in our worst-case scenario, combining bi-monthly testing with contact tracing and quarantining measures appear to be a sufficient (perhaps not necessary) policy option in the aftermath of the deconfinement plan.

Citizen participation in the formulation and management of public policies - practical case: Municipality of Sucre

This research paper presents the issue of citizen participation at the low participation in the formulation, development, implementation and control. Public policies promote a better quality life, the solution of society`s specific problems and demands related to priorized needs. Thus, public policies must be directed to an excellent development and institutional enforcement to satisfy the needs of a constantly growing society. This paper collected the perception of citizen participation in the Management of Public Policy in relation to the rulers and the ruled (Citizenship with the different levels of government). This research aims to improve public participation in the formulation, development, implementation and control, at different levels of government to contribute to the quality of Public Policy Management in the Municipality of Sucre.

Responsible Governance and the Sustainability of Populist Public Policies. The Implications of Wage-Led Growth Strategy in Romania

In the present paper, we focus on the macroeconomic implications of the populist public policies and in particular on the effects of wage led growth strategy, which started to be applied in Romania from January 2017. Such a study is important as a practical example of applying this particular wage related public policy and sets the premises for analyzing its sustainability and its macroeconomic implications and costs. For analyzing the implications of the wage-led growth strategy upon the sustainability of macroeconomic variables, we have used an unrestricted VAR (vector auto regressive) and compared the effect of the impulse response functions with the recent evolutions of the Romanian economy. Thus, we have observed the effect of the wage led growth strategy, by using the average wage, trade deficit, number of employees, inflation rate, labor productivity, and minimum wage as variables. Our study shows that the wage-led growth policy had a strong positive impact on the number of employees and on inflation, increasing it, but a negative impact on productivity. In addition, we have seen a strong positive impact on increasing the trade deficit. These particular evolutions have left the Romanian economy with almost no fiscal and monetary space of maneuver in the face of the exogenous shock produced by the pandemic.

To the market and back? A study of the interplay between public policy and market-driven initiatives to improve farm animal welfare in the Danish pork sector

This article discusses the interplay of public policy and market-driven initiatives to improve farm animal welfare (FAW). Over the last couple of decades, the notion of ‘market-driven animal welfare’ has become popular, but can the market deliver the FAW that consumers and politicians expect? Using the Danish pork sector as the empirical setting, this article studies efforts to improve private FAW standards following changes to general regulations. The analysis shows that ethical misgivings regarding the adequacy of current and prospective FAW standards are tempered by the economic considerations that guide the practices of some actors. The study also shows that efforts to improve FAW standards are contingent on collaboration and coordination across globalised markets among actors with divergent interests. The findings have important implications for market practices and public policy in relation to FAW.

Mr A preliminary comparative perspective on the role of multinational enterprises in influencing labour relations of their host nation

This paper examines the operations of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in so far as they are able to influence the public and labour relations policy and law of their host nation with a special attention on African nations. It is to be expected that MNEs would already be comfortable with the mechanisms in place for the resolution of labour-related or commercial disputes in their country of origin. The question then that arises is: If confronted with an employment relations situation in their host nation, would the MNE attempt to circumvent or adapt the process to suit what they are already familiar with? This could pose a challenge for the practice of international labour law. Literature (Briscoe, Schuler & Tarique, 2012; Eweje, 2009; Iyanda & Bello, 1979; Onimode, 1978) already alludes to the fact that MNEs tend to take the ‘line of least resistance’ if confronted with ‘higher’ labour standards.
 A comparative exploratory analysis was undertaken. The paper identified MNEs in selected African countries – Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia – that have been reported to have had a challenge in dealing with labour-related or commercial standards of their host nation. The selected MNEs had been reported in the news media for having had a ‘run in’ with their host nation on, at least, a labour - or commercial law-related matter.
 The principal legislation governing labour relations in these countries are, in some cases, briefly highlighted to underscore the extent of their breach or disregard by the examined MNEs. Furthermore, a qualitative, thematic analysis of selected reported cases involving these MNEs were undertaken to highlight evidences (or instances) of attempts, if any, by the MNEs to circumvent the commercial, fiscal or labour standards of the host nation. Finally, it is hoped that the result of the above analyses would inform the possibility of proposing a framework for MNEs compliance with the labour standards of their host nation.

IMPACT OF MENTAL HEALTH AND BEHAVIORAL DISORDER DUE TO THE USE OF ALCOHOL IN THE PERNAMBUCO POPULATION: AN ANALYSIS FROM NATIONAL HEALTH INDICATORS

Introduction: Alcohol abuse does not characterize a state of character or weakness, it is a physical and psychological dependence that manipulates a dependent’s conduct and interposes between the individual, a family and other social relationships. There are 3.3 million deaths per year, due to harmful use of alcohol, and ranks as the third disease that kills the most in the world. In Brazil, it is estimated that 4.2% of the population most likely to be abused or addicted, alarming compared to the world average. Objective: To analyze the prevalence data in new cases of mental and behavioral disorders due to alcohol use, from 2014 to 2018 by sample of municipalities in the state of Pernambuco with more than 100 new cases in the period. Methodology: This is a study in secondary databases, conducted from the Brazilian Basic Data indicators, an integral tool of the health information system, using quantitative analysis of variables. Results: There was a reduction of 8% in new cases in 2018 when compared to 2014. The municipality of Vitoria de Santo Antao had a greater relative reduction of new cases in the period, from 82 in 2014 to 5 new cases in 2018. Paulista presented 559 fewer new cases when comparing 2018 and 2014, this being the largest absolute reduction among the municipalities. Men were 18 times more dependent than women, and the population aged 30 to 59 years had 4.6 times more new cases than the other age groups. Discussion: It is generally observed that there were significant reductions in the number of new cases when evaluating all municipalities in Pernambuco. This may be associated with the expansion of preventive public health education policies aimed at raising awareness of the use and abuse of the population and the role of multidisciplinary teams towards the dependent patient, with a view to the integral attention of the dependent and his personal relationships, fundamental to maintaining mental health. Conclusion: The data analysis showed that despite the reduction of hospitalizations related to alcohol abuse, there is still a need for new public policies in relation to these patients, focusing on the male gender and the potentially active age population, since the reduction of the incidence of these patients. cases over the years and reflects a direct reduction in mental and behavioral disorders in the state of Pernambuco population.

Оценка государственной политики в отношении отдельных вопросов функционирования здравоохранения в период распространения коронавируса Covid-19

Оценка государственной политики в отношении отдельных вопросов функционирования здравоохранения в период распространения коронавируса Covid-19

Obstacles to Labour Market Participation Among Arab Women in Israel

This study investigates the factors that underlay the low labour force participation rate among Palestinian-Arab women in Israel relative to Jewish women despite the high educational attainment among this group. We focus on four factors that could explain this pattern: (i) socioeconomic factors such as age and education, (ii) culture factors such as the religiosity of the individual-woman and her family, (iii) family structure and related public policies, and (iv) the early retirement of Arab women from the labour market. We find that all four of these factors affect the probability of Palestinian-Arab women participating in the labour market. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for labour market policies.

Covid-19 and Systemic Resilience: Rethinking the Impacts of Migrant Workers and Labour Migration Policies

This paper argues that concerns about the resilience of essential services require a reassessment of the impacts of migrant workers and the design of labour migration and related public policies. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the high share of migrants among ‘key workers’ who deliver essential services, notably in agriculture and food production, health services and social care. We review existing insights on the role of migrant workers in essential services, which emphasise employers’ incentives as well as different national policies and institutional settings. We introduce the notion of systemic resilience to this context and outline key determinants of systemic resilience that have been identified in several disciplines but not yet applied in the field of labour migration. Given the importance of essential services, the paper argues that bolstering resilience should be a key objective for policy makers, and systemic resilience should be a criterion in impact assessments of migrant workers and in the design of labour migration and related policies. We find that this requires broader approaches to consider entire systems for the provision of essential goods and services, more attention to the medium and long run, and thinking beyond the protection of domestic workers. As an agenda for new migration research, we discuss three types of comparative analysis needed to examine the various ways in which migrant workers might affect systemic resilience.

A participação social como discurso institucional na agenda do turismo do México

The objective of this article is to analyze the adherence of social participation in political decision-making by examining the basis of public tourism policies in relation to the actors and their interests in the institutional discourse. Specifically, the Mexican Tourism Sector Plan (2013-2018) is examined to identify how social participation is present in the discourse presented. This research contributes to the debate on the development of tourist destinations based on the benefit of impacted populations, as opposed to private interests. It is assumed that the possibility of the involvement of various actors in the public arena is linked to the level of autonomy of the receiving communities, aiming at the consolidation of their cultural, environmental and heritage values, in the public interference for the development of tourism. It is concluded that social participation is present in the institutional discourse, however, public policies are directed to a central objective that does not incorporate the demands of society in general.

Communicating Social Impact as a New Trend in Corporate Reputation Management in the Light of Contemporary Political and Social Challenges

Abstract The tide of the 2008 economic crisis strengthened social and political movements that ask about the current form of the capitalist system and the practices of large corporations. For the latter, this means a significant reputational challenge. In facing it, companies are improving their corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate citizenship (CC) and public relations (PR) policies, and deploying new forms of strategic management and communication. One of them is the trend of management and social communication of companies’ social impact, bringing together the CSR, CC, PR and humanistic management approaches.

Outcomes en la evaluación de las relaciones públicas, la aproximación semiótica / Outcomes in the evaluation of public relations, the semiotic approach

La evaluación de las relaciones públicas es una actividad de primer orden cuyo objetivo es comprender si esta función ha alcanzado la efectividad pretendida. Pese a que el mundo académico ofrece modelos de evaluación, en la actualidad el análisis de los resultados obtenidos sigue estando más centrado en datos relacionados con la cobertura que genera las relaciones públicas olvidando la verdadera influencia que espera alcanzar. Existe un consenso generalizado sobre la importancia que tiene medir los verdaderos resultados que se extraen de las acciones de relaciones públicas. Estos datos se conocen como outcomes y resulta muy complejo encontrar ejemplos reales y concretos sobre su medición o cuantificación.Este artículo espera ofrecer una opción para el estudio de outcomes basado en la combinación de análisis del discurso y de la semiótica.Palabras clave: Relaciones públicas, outputs, outcomes, evaluación, análisis del discurso, semióticaAbstract Evaluation of public relations is a major activity whose goal is to understand whether this function has reached the intended effectiveness. Although the academic world offers evaluation models nowadays still common to analyze results with data obtained by the coverage generated by public relations, forgetting the true influence that it hopes to reach. Authors such as MacNamara and Gregory (2018) have analyzed the evaluation models of strategic communication focusing on the final results that are the objective of the communication actions. On the other hand, institutions such as the AMEC have formulated in their frameworks the differences that exist between the coverage obtained (outputs) and the changes achieved (outcomes). Therefore there is a general consensus on the importance of measuring the true influence of public relations actions. These data are known as outcomes and it is very difficult to find real and concrete examples of their measurement or quantification. This situation is due to the fact that institutions dedicated to measuring and evaluating communication avoid explaining in detail the methods they use to assess the achievement of objectives in the actions they implement. This article hopes to offer an option for the study of outcomes through the combination of discourse analysis and semiotics. On the one hand, discourse analysis is a qualitative research method that aims to extract relevant information from a contextual perspective. On the other hand, semiotics is a discipline with a broad vision oriented to the comprehension of messages. Within this line the use of a technique known as semiotic square allows to show the tensions in the meanings related to a brand or organization. The application of the discourse analysis and the semiotic square could allow interpreting the changes in the coverage generated by the communication actions of the organizations. This would be possible by applying an observation before the exposition and another after the application of the necessary communication actions that promote the values intended by the organization. The free change of the values that are associated to an organization can be a vital element to improve its media positioning in its business. For example, Exxon implemented actions for the benefit of the environment following the rejection of its shareholders' meeting. The owners of the company criticized that the organization was being mismanaged for not taking into account the climate risk. The success of these actions is measurable both quantitatively and qualitatively by providing an outcome whose intensity can achieve shareholder acceptance. The change of meanings associated with Exxon may represent the approval of management by the real owners. In this small test the semiotic square measurement indicated the change from pro-contaminant and non-sustainable to anti-pollutant and non-sustainable values, and invites for more ambitious research. Applying a case study, this research shows the possible use of two tools not valued until now. The combination of discourse analysis and semiotic square can be a great help for the interpretation of the results generated by concrete public relations policies within the strategic communication of an organization. Keywords Public relations, outputs, outcomes, evaluation, discourse analysis, semiotics

Políticas públicas y procesos relacionados al Patrimonio Musical en Ecuador

En este artículo se hace un análisis de las políticas públicas relacionadas al patrimonio musical del Ecuador, que se enmarca dentro del patrimonio inmaterial. Sobre las entidades mundiales y nacionales que se encargan de procesos relacionados a su protección, salvaguardia y gestión, además de dar luces sobre los pasos que se deben seguir para que individuos, colectivos o entidades en general puedan proponer que un bien sea nombrado como patrimonio musical del país.

Personality, Luck Beliefs, and (Non-?) Problem Lottery Gambling

This study offers both the first systematic investigation of the relationship between the five-factor personality model and general (ostensibly non-problem) lottery gambling, and the first application of Thompson and Prendergast’s (2013) bidimensional model of luck beliefs to gambling behavior. Cross-sectional analyses (N = 844) indicate the bidimensional model of luck beliefs significantly accounts for variance in lottery gambling that is discrete from and greater than that of the five-factor personality model. Moreover, the broad pattern of relationships we find between presumably harmless state-sponsored lottery gambling and both personality and luck beliefs tend to parallel those found in studies of problem gambling, suggesting implications for quality of life and public policy in relation to lottery gambling.

The impact of pension governance practices on the public defined benefit pension performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the public pension governance practices on the public defined benefit pension (DBP) fund performance.Design/methodology/approachTo provide a holistic evaluation of public DBP performance, this study first employs the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to construct a relative performance measure that simultaneously takes into account the association between investment inputs and performance outputs across DBPs in our sample. A DEA regression model is then constructed to empirically examine the impact of pension governance on public DBP performance.FindingsUsing 1,544 hand-collected observations in the USA from 2002 to 2013, the findings show that the public DBP plans with a small board, appointed board trustees, and a separate investment council exhibit better performance.Practical implicationsThe effectiveness of pension governance has increasingly drawn public attention, as it affects the performance of the public DBP plans that especially matter to public employees. The empirical findings of this research offer insights into recent calls to reexamine public DBP management practices and to carry out related public pension fund policy reforms.Originality/valueThe examination of public DBP governance practices in this study enriches the governance literature, particularly research on public pension funds, by using public sector data. Second, by applying the DEA method to evaluate the relative performance of public DBP funds, this study obtains a more comprehensive analysis of the public pension governance.