Restrictive Policies Research Articles

Structural estimates of the South African sacrifice ratio

This paper estimates the output cost of fighting inflation—the sacrifice ratio—for the South African economy using quarterly data spanning the period 1998:1–2019:3. To compute the sacrifice ratio, the structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model developed by Cecchetti and Rich (2001) based on Cecchetti (1994) is employed. Our findings show us a small sacrifice ratio, which lies within the range 0.00002–0.231 percent with an average of 0.031 percent, indicating a low level of output to be sacrificed while fighting inflation. Hence, the reserve bank is recommended to sustain an inflation rate within the target range and reap the benefits of a predictable and stable price path, as restrictive monetary policy has only a transitory effect on real variables like output.

Unlocking the interaction of social restriction and social protection in Indonesia’s COVID-19 policy: future risk and adaptation

ABSTRACT The Indonesian government has issued hundreds of regulations and policies to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These various policies and regulations assess how a government responds, mitigates, and prevents systemic crises in its country. These decisions- and policy-making processes are largely determined by the country’s unique socioeconomic and political landscape. This paper reviewed 875 regulations issued by the Indonesian government at the national level in 2020–2022 to determine which policies have the most direct social, economic, and health impact on the Indonesian population. We highlight social protection to explore the challenges and opportunities to respond future risk by taking benefit from progressive effort of the Indonesian government to protect all Indonesian populations with the priority of the most vulnerable groups. This paper aims to map out government policies and regulations in handling the pandemic and exploring the potential opportunities for adaptation to respond future risk. The study is based on expert group discussion and policy mapping. As one of the findings of the investigation, this paper discusses the interaction between large-scale and micro-scale social restriction and social protection policies, which are considered the foremost solutions for handling Indonesia’s more severe economic crisis and facing current and future risks, including climate change impact. While social protection is one of the massive strategies to relieve economic impact to the most affected group, effectiveness and success are still challenges concerning data. This paper also provides important notes regarding climate change adaptation and how the government must respond to future risks.

Harm reduction social work with people who use drugs: a qualitative interview study with social workers in harm reduction services in Sweden

BackgroundSocial work with people who use drugs (PWUD) has traditionally focused on abstinence and rehabilitation. In recent years, harm reduction has gained an increasingly more important role in social work with PWUD, and social workers are key professionals in many harm reduction services. This study investigates how social workers in harm reduction services for PWUD in Sweden understand the concept of harm reduction and how it relates to goals of rehabilitation, and how they assess and deal with dilemmas and challenges in everyday work.MethodsThe study is based on interviews with 22 social workers in harm reduction services for PWUD in the Scania region of Sweden. A thematic analysis in three steps was used in coding and processing the data.ResultsThe social workers pointed to similar values between social work and harm reduction and argued for combining the two fields to improve services for PWUD. Three overarching principles for Harm Reduction Social Work (HRSW) were developed based on the social workers accounts: (1) Harm reduction is a prerequisite for rather than a counterpoint to rehabilitation and recovery, (2) motivational work must be non-mandatory and based on the client’s goals, (3) a holistic perspective is crucial for Harm Reduction Social Work. Challenges in doing HRSW concerned restrictive laws, policies, and guidelines, resistance from managers, difficulties in setting boundaries between client autonomy and life-saving interventions, and the risk of normalizing high-risk behaviors.ConclusionsWe use the concept of Harm Reduction Social Work to show how social work with PWUD can have a primary focus on reducing harm and risks, while at the same time it involves a holistic perspective that facilitates motivation and change. The suggested principles of HRSW can provide guidance in practical social work with vulnerable PWUD. Social workers can have important roles in most harm reduction settings and may act to enable recovery.

The impact of COVID-19 government policy on the international wine trade

To control the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments implemented various restrictive policies, such as stay-at-home orders and restrictions on internal movement, which had adverse effects on consumption and, consequently, on international trade. This was observed even for products intensively traded and minimally impacted in terms of production, such as wine. Thus, to work towards a better awareness of future crises, this study assesses the impact of government policy responses to COVID-19 on the international wine trade. A gravity model, a benchmark approach for studying the determinants of trade, is estimated using monthly data for 20 exporting countries and 214 potential importing countries. The findings suggest that, ceteris paribus, the value of wine export flows was inversely related to the intensity of government policy response in importing countries due to lower demand provoked by restrictive measures. This effect was considerably reduced, however, concerning wines coming from the Old World, which are inferred to be more resilient, a factor primarily attributed to their higher share of wines exported with geographical indications. On the other hand, only the exports from Old World countries were negatively influenced by restrictions on internal movements in the exporting country, which reflects a business model with a complex supply chain in which several intermediaries are involved, thus weakening the direct linkage between wine producers and consumers.

“Welcoming Spaces”: Migration and New Communities in Marginalised Regions

The presence of migration in non-urban areas is mainly related to the paradoxical coexistence of both restrictive migration policies and a proliferation of welcoming initiatives. These initiatives are aimed at (co-)creating “welcoming spaces” and are often driven by older residents and migrant people but can equally be the outcome of initiatives by local governments, NGOs, and businesses. This contribution introduces the potentialities and limits of these initiatives to create hybrid forms of hospitality and prospects to enhance local development. It opens with a reflection on the political relevance of welcoming spaces and their governance from an international and national perspective. Second, it reflects upon the social and narrative significance of welcoming and hospitality. Considering the intersections between the political and the discursive dimension of welcoming spaces, it closes with a recommendation to recognise the collective dimension of hospitality and to create the basis for re-imagining spaces of conviviality in non-urban areas to sustain fairer and more inclusive societies.

National Legislative Favorability and Insurance Coverage for Adult and Adolescent Gender-Affirming Surgery.

Despite established medical necessity, laws prohibiting coverage discrimination, and increasing numbers of transgender and gender-diverse patients seeking gender-affirming surgery (GAS), cost and restrictive insurance policies continue to be the most common barriers. As recent legislation places further restrictions on GAS, this study aimed to provide an updated review of insurance policies and assess the relationship between legislative favorability and coverage. Insurance policies of groups representing 80% market coverage in each state were collected for gender-affirming chest, genital, and facial surgery. Policies were categorized based on previously published methodologies: never-covered, case-by-case, and preauthorization. The relationship between established scores of legislative favorability and policy coverage in each state was analyzed and compared across regions. Of the 316 analyzed policies, coverage was preauthorized most often for genital (94.0%), masculinizing top (93%), feminizing top (74%), and facial reconstruction (24%). Higher legislative scores in the Northeast and West, and individual states were predictive of increased genital, facial, and all forms of adolescent GAS, but were not correlated to chest GAS. Compared with previous studies, our findings suggest that there is a growing acceptance of GAS as medically necessary. However, the correlation between legislative scores and genital, face, and adolescent GAS coverage may suggest increased reliance on sociopolitical factors for access in the absence of comprehensive medical guidelines, which are more established for chest reconstruction. Significantly higher coverage of masculinizing versus feminizing chest surgery suggests additional burden of proof for GAS with a cosmetic overlap.

Analisis Probabilitas Kebangkrutan Bank Umum Swasta Nasional di Masa Pandemi

At the end of 2019, the world was shocked by the phenomenon of the Covid-19 virus which caused significant changes to the economies of all countries, including Indonesia, where to date 6 million cases have been recorded. The implementation of the Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) policy implemented by the government has had an impact on the country's economic sector where many companies have closed down. This bankruptcy occurs due to financial distress, which is a condition where a company or individual cannot generate sufficient income or profit. Based on this phenomenon, researchers are interested in conducting research regarding the bankruptcy probability analysis of national private commercial banks listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. This research uses quantitative methods with secondary data obtained from company financial reports for 3 years, namely from before the 2019 to 2021 pandemic which will be processed using the Altman Z-Score and Zmijewski X-Score analysis methods.

Learning to live with COVID-19 in Norway: Moving from a pandemic to an endemic state

ObjectivesTo analyze the relationship between the stringency of policies that focus on containment, mitigation and elimination and practices to change behavior implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic and apparent impacts in the Norwegian population and society. In particular, to consider how the escalation and de-escalation of policy stringency relates to both health and non-health societal factors. MethodsObservational analysis of publicly available statistics, government documents and media sources. ResultsThe stringency of policies relating to social containment, mitigation and elimination and practices to change behaviour were linked to infection rates and pressures on the health system until the endemic phase of COVID-19. In the endemic phase all restrictions were removed despite high levels of infection justified on the basis of the success of the vaccination programme. ConclusionsIn the Norwegian context containment policies were highly effective in limiting both infections and deaths from COVID-19 and more so than reliance on vaccinations alone despite high levels of public participation. In part this is due to the significant trust in the state apparent in Norway that leads to compliance with even highly restrictive policies. Therefore compliance may be more important than the level of stringency in explaining the consequence of public policies on pandemic outcomes.

Implementation strategies, facilitators, and barriers to scaling up and sustaining task-sharing in family planning: a protocol for a mixed-methods systematic review

BackgroundEnsuring access to quality family planning (FP) services is fundamental to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets 3.1, 3.7, and 5.6, including universal access to reproductive health services. However, barriers such as health workforce shortages and restrictive policies on the role of mid and lower-level health workforce cadres limit access to contraceptives and FP in many settings.Workforce reorganization makes more efficient use of human resources. Consequently, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends task-sharing for FP by different cadres. Evidence on the implementation strategies, facilitators, and barriers to scaling up and sustaining task-sharing could inform financing, implementation approaches, and technical assistance of national and global FP task-sharing programs. Therefore, this study aims to describe and assess the quality of the evidence on implementation strategies, facilitators, and barriers to scaling up and sustaining task-sharing in FP and the outcome of the scale-up/sustainability interventions.MethodsThis systematic review protocol was developed using relevant guidelines, including the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) Protocols (PRISMA-P). A search of five databases, namely CINAHL (EBSCOhost), EMBASE (OvidSP), Global Health (OvidSP), MEDLINE (OvidSP), and Scopus (www.scopus.com), and gray literature resources will be conducted. Two independent reviewers will screen and select studies, assess their quality using the “Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool,” and extract data from eligible studies. Publications or articles are eligible if they report implementation strategies, facilitators, or barriers to scaling up/sustainability of task-sharing in FP/contraception or the outcomes of the scale-up/sustainability interventions. A convergent synthesis that integrates qualitative, quantitative, descriptive, and mixed-methods data into one dataset will be used for analysis based on an a priori framework—the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organization of Care (EPOC) taxonomy of the health system framework. Two independent reviewers will assess the quality of evidence using the GRADE-CERQual guideline.DiscussionTo our knowledge, this systematic review of implementation strategies, facilitators, and barriers to scaling up and sustaining task-sharing in family planning is the first in this area. Our rigorous methodology based on up-to-date guidelines can help generate relevant recommendations to support interventions to scale up and sustain task-sharing in family planning.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO CRD42022339885.

Perceived Consequences of COVID-19 Restrictive Visitation Policy on Family Members at Rural Hospitals in Vhembe District: A Qualitative Study.

From a public health standpoint, a stringent visitation policy was necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it had unforeseen communicative and emotional health consequences for family members. This study explored family members' experiences regarding implementing a restricted visitation policy when a patient was admitted with COVID-19 at public hospitals in the Vhembe district. Researchers used an exploratory, descriptive, and contextual qualitative technique. Twelve family members made up the population. Unstructured telephone interviews were used to obtain the data, and open coding was used to analyse data. Ethics were consistently followed. Before taking part, participants provided verbal informed consent, acknowledging that they could withdraw from the study if necessary. Three themes emerged: inadequate measures for temporary communication channels and techniques, the mental health effects of COVID-19 admission, and poor/lack of standardised visitation policy during the COVID 19-pandemic. There was a need to balance safety from contracting COVID-19 infection and promoting family-centred care. Virtual visits through telecommunication solutions could reduce fear and anxiety as the family could be updated on the progress of the hospitalised relative. Alternatively, hospital managers must allocate a dedicated person in the unit to update families when they call and enquire about the conditions.

The effects of policy changes and human mobility on the COVID-19 epidemic in the Dominican Republic, 2020–2021

Recent advances in technology can be leveraged to enhance public health research and practice. This study aimed to assess the effects of mobility and policy changes on COVID-19 case growth and the effects of policy changes on mobility using data from Google Mobility Reports, information on public health policy, and COVID-19 testing results. Multiple bivariate regression analyses were conducted to address the study objectives. Policies designed to limit mobility led to decreases in mobility in public areas. These policies also decreased COVID-19 case growth. Conversely, policies that did not restrict mobility led to increases in mobility in public areas and led to increases in COVID-19 case growth. Mobility increases in public areas corresponded to increases in COVID-19 case growth, while concentration of mobility in residential areas corresponded to decreases in COVID-19 case growth. Overall, restrictive policies were effective in decreasing COVID-19 incidence in the Dominican Republic, while permissive policies led to increases in COVID-19 incidence.

Governing migration through vulnerability at Spain’s southern maritime border: a malleable concept in a securitised and marketised regime

ABSTRACT Vulnerability has emerged as a central policy concept in migration governance. Despite its growing importance, the concept remains contested and ambiguous. As multiple conceptions of vulnerability circulate, it becomes crucial to gain a better understanding of how ‘vulnerability’ might shape practices on the ground. In this article, I explore how different actors in the province of Cádiz, located at Spain and the EU’s southern maritime border, understood, and operationalised ‘vulnerability’. The aim is to advance understandings of vulnerability as a mechanism of governance in the reception of people on the move in the context of so-called ‘mixed movements’. My focus is on how vulnerability as a new classifying label overlaps with and fragments previous labels that underpin migration governance. Through the analysis, I show how the malleability of the notion of vulnerability constituted an opportunity for actors on the ground to challenge categorical and legal distinctions between migrants. However, civil society organisations’ engagement with vulnerability not only represented a ‘push-back’ of restrictive policies but was also a way to adapt and survive in a securitised and marketised regime.

Do all CEO pay regulations hurt firm performance? Evidence from China

PurposeThe authors study and compare the effects of three CEO compensation restricting policies issued by the Chinese government in 2009, 2012 and 2015. This paper aims to shed light on the conditions under which CEO compenstation can be effectively regulated without negatively affecting firm performance. Design/methodology/approachThese policies targeted state-owned enterprises (SOEs), especially central state-owned enterprises (CSOEs). Using these policies as natural experiments, the authors investigate how their effects differ on CEO compensation, firm performance and two known performance-decreasing mechanisms: perk consumption and tunneling activities.FindingsThe authors show that restricting CEO pay does not necessarily backfire in terms of deteriorating firm performance. This non-decreasing firm performance can be achieved by restricting perk consumption and tunneling activities while introducing CEO pay regulations.Originality/valueThe authors exploit a powerful experimental setting in the context of China. The evidence contributes to the literature on CEO pay regulations and is relevant to the managerial decisions of policy makers and boards of directors.

Assessing the performance of industrial water resource systems in China with total constraints on water consumption and pollution emissions.

To promote sustainable water resource management, the Chinese government has enacted restrictive policies and targets in terms of total water usage, water intensity, and pollution emissions. While data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been extensively adopted in assessing industrial water resource systems, previous studies have not integrated the realistic constraints on total water consumption and total pollution emissions into a unified framework. This paper examines the system as a two-stage process of water use (WU) and water pollution abatement (WPA), where fixed-sum constraints are imposed on both water consumption and pollution emissions. To address such two-stage DMUs with fixed-sum inputs and fixed-sum outputs, we propose a novel two-stage fixed-sum DEA approach and apply it to evaluate the performance of industrial WU-WPA systems for 29 provinces in China from 2014 to 2018. The results are as follows. From the overall efficiency perspective, the industrial WU-WPA system in China is overall efficient, but provincial overall efficiency polarizes with 19 provinces evaluated as overall inefficient. From a time perspective, overall efficiency shows an increasing then decreasing or descending trend nationally and across the 16 provinces; on the national average, WPA efficiency shows an increasing and then decreasing trend, while WU efficiency demonstrates consistent improvement over time and surpasses WPA efficiency after 2016. In terms of the four areas, regional disparities in the overall efficiencies are converging; for both the whole system and the sub-stage, the eastern area performs the best, followed by the western, northeastern, and central areas. Based on the empirical results, suggestions for improving industrial water resource management are given at the national, regional, and provincial perspectives respectively.

Transit Experiences

Abstract Between the 1870s and 1914, millions of Eastern Europeans moved to the United States. Little is known about the actual journeys of Polish, Jewish, and other migrants. A closer look at the experiences of transmigrants reveals a sophisticated system that was managed by Germany's two largest steamship lines, the Hamburg-America Line and the Bremen-based North German Lloyd. In the early 1880s, the United States shifted to a more thorough screening of arriving migrants, refusing admission to a growing number of “undesirables.” In 1885, Germany's largest state, Prussia, implemented a restrictive immigration policy, much earlier than other states in and beyond Europe. The steamship lines convinced the Prussian state not to prevent migrants from Eastern Europe from crossing its territory. Before 1914, migrant aid associations also established a good accord with different state agencies in Europe and North America. They intervened on behalf of migrants who had been detained, often successfully. State officials embraced non-state actors because they solved protracted problems and relieved states of a financial burden. The article examines the origins of the privately handled transmigration system in Imperial Germany and raises the question whether it was beneficial for average migrants.

Promoting Gender-Affirming Care: Challenging Conflation and Embracing Complexity

Anti-LGBTQ legislation and policies that restrict access to gender-affirming care for gender-diverse youth have been on the rise. These policies, particularly policies that restrict gender-affirming care for trans and gender-diverse youth, are often based on a narrow interpretation of data and oversimplification of the concepts of sex and gender. Quantitative and qualitative public health data show that queer and gender-diverse youth face significant mental health risks, so they need care and treatment options that address their distinct needs. Recognizing the complexities of sex and gender, inclusive policies should support gender-affirming care for gender-diverse youth. Restrictive legislation and policies based on oversimplified understandings of sex and gender perpetuate discrimination and harm. Policy recommendations include ensuring access to gender-affirming care, providing comprehensive LGBTQ-inclusive education and training for healthcare providers, and ensuring protection against discrimination.

State-Level Abortion Policy Hostility and Unplanned Births in the Pre-Dobbs Era

An increasingly hostile policy climate has reshaped abortion access in the United States. Recent literature has studied the effects of restrictive abortion policies on reproductive health outcomes. This study is the first to investigate the association between state-level abortion policy hostility and the pregnancy intentions of women with a pregnancy resulting in live birth. Data are from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System survey, merged with a state-level legislative database from 2012–2018 and other state-level controls. Cross-sectional results reveal that a one-unit increase in abortion policy hostility is associated with a relative risk (odds) of having a live birth resulting from an unintended versus intended pregnancy that is 1.02 times as high (RRR = 1.02, 95% confidence interval = 1.01, 1.03). This result corresponds to a 13% increase in the predicted probability of having a live birth resulting from an unintended pregnancy between a zero-hostility and a maximum-hostility state. Models stratified by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics reveal that the association between abortion policy hostility and live birth resulting from an unintended pregnancy is particularly robust among women in younger, less educated, Medicaid, uninsured, and rural populations.

Feeling worried and powerless: A qualitative interview study of relatives’ experiences of the collaboration with patients and nurses during COVID-19 visiting restrictions in Denmark

Relatives are an important resource to hospitalised patients and hence to nursing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, visiting restriction policies were implemented in healthcare settings globally, unwillingly excluding relatives from visiting the bedsides of their loved ones. The aim of the present study was to explore how the visiting restrictions influenced relatives’ relationships with patients and collaboration with registered nurses at non-pandemic hospital wards. In total, 13 relatives were interviewed. The study was reported following the COREQ guidelines and checklist. Content analysis led to three themes: 1) being excluded from providing care and support; 2) being excluded from conveying person-centred and situational relevant knowledge to registered nurses; and 3) being excluded from assessing the health status of the hospitalised loved one. Together they describe relatives feeling worried and powerless regarding the health of their hospitalised loved one and the performed nursing care. Findings from studies such as this are pivotal to any future national or global health crisis, where visiting restriction policies are implemented.

A machine learning approach to analyzing spatiotemporal impacts of mobility restriction policies on infection rates

A machine learning approach to analyzing spatiotemporal impacts of mobility restriction policies on infection rates

“Hungarian Supremacy Cannot Be Debated”. Hungarian Conservative Sociologists on the Nationalities Question (1908–1918)

Abstract Magyar Társadalomtudományi Szemle (MTSZ), i.e. Hungarian Review of Social Sciences, was published between 1908 and 1918, and it was the highest-toned journal of contemporary Hungarian conservative sociology. At that time, in the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, one of the most pressing social issues was the nationalities question: what rights belong to non-Hungarian-speaking nationalities living in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary? This question was answered by two schools of tender-aged Hungarian social science. In general, liberal-left sociologists following Western scientific patterns believed that the language and cultural rights of national minorities need to be expanded. Conservatives, on the other hand, called for a restrictive policy to maintain the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Hungary. The analysis of the authors and writings in favour of the extension of rights has been completed (Litván 1978, 2006; Litván–Szücs 1973). Conservative sociologists who support the restriction, however, have so far received almost no attention in the history of sociology. In this writing, I would like to fill this gap. After the short institutional presentation of contemporary conservative sociology, I will focus on their central journal, MTSZ. I will analyse the articles in which the authors have taken a position on the nationalities question. I argue that the articles published in the MTSZ have primarily addressed the nationalities question as a political and demographic issue. Therefore, I will describe these two types of writing. (Beyond that, some articles focused on social theory, culture, or education when writing about the rights of non-Hungarian-speaking minorities.) My basic question is how those aspects of the nationalities question appeared in MTSZ and how those all create a specific political store of knowledge. If we get answers to this, not only will we shed light on one of the forgotten but exciting schools of early Central European social science, but perhaps the history of the first quarter of the 20th century will also be better understood.