Distinguishing between types of data and methods of collecting them

The author examines the role of different data collection methods--including the types of data they produce--in the analysis of social phenomena in developing countries. He points out that one confusing factor in the"quantitative-qualitative"debate is that a distinction is not clearly made between methods of data collection used and types of data generated. He maintains the divide between quantitative and qualitative types of data but analyzes methods according to their"contextuality": the degree to which they try to understand human behavior in the social, cultural, economic, and political environment of a given place. He emphasizes that it is most fruitful to think of both methods and data as lying on a continuum stretching from more to less contextual methodology and from more to less qualitative data output. Using characteristic information needs for health planning derived from data on the use of health services, he shows that each combination of method (more or less contextual) and data (more or less qualitative) is a unique primary source that can fulfill different information requirements. He concludes that: 1) Certain information about health utilization can be obtained only through contextual methods--in which case strict statistical representability must give way to inductive conclusions, assessments of internal validity, and replicability of results. 2) Often contextual methods are needed to design appropriate noncontextual data collection tools. 3) Even where noncontextual data collection methods are needed, contextual methods can play an important role in assessing the validity of the results at the local level. 4) In cases where different data collection methods can be used to probe general results, the methods can--and need to be--formally linked.Early Child and Children's Health,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Housing&Human Habitats,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Poverty Assessment,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Systems Development&Reform,Scientific Research&Science Parks

Does corruption affect suicide? Empirical evidence from OECD countries

The question to what extent corruption influences suicide remains still unanswered. This paper examines the effect of corruption on suicide using a panel data approach for 24 OECD countries over the period 1995-2004. Our results show that suicide rates are lower in countries with lower levels of corruption. We also find evidence that this effect is approximately three times larger for males than for females. It follows from these findings that corruption has a detrimental effect on societal well-being and its effect differs based on the social position of genders.Corruption, Panel data, Suicide, Well- Being, OECD

Slavery is bad for business: analyzing the impact of slavery on national economies

Public discourse on human trafficking and modern-day slavery is reaching a tipping point -- it is coming to be understood as a global problem with economic and policy implications far beyond simple reports of cross-border human trafficking. A decade ago most educated citizens considered slavery a phenomenon of the past, relegated to history textbooks. Today a strong narrative has reached global proportions: activists, epistemic communities, NGOs, IGOs, and governments are acknowledging the scope and extent of slavery in the twenty-first century. One need only point to Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wu Dunn’s bestseller Half the Sky, President Barack Obama’s 2012 speech at the Clinton Global Intiative, or the awareness that celebrities such as Mira Sorvino and Jada Pinkett Smith are raising about the subject to illustrate how far the antislavery movement has progressed.1 Yet despite such civic mindedness, surprisingly little data and empirically driven research exist on slavery today. Although some headway has been made in estimating its prevalence -- most notably in the form of contributions by Kevin Bales and by the International Labor Organization (ILO) -- apart from a rough estimate of how many slaves exist in the world today (21 to 27 million), scholars and policy makers know little about the risk factors -- let alone the business impact -- that contemporary slavery has on the global community.2 Indeed, most extant research, although useful, is qualitative, not allowing for statistical models.3 To what extent is slavery empirically bad for business? For whom is the business of slavery profitable, and for whom is it economically burdensome

Slavery is bad for business: analyzing the impact of slavery on national economies

Public discourse on human trafficking and modern-day slavery is reaching a tipping point -- it is coming to be understood as a global problem with economic and policy implications far beyond simple reports of cross-border human trafficking. A decade ago most educated citizens considered slavery a phenomenon of the past, relegated to history textbooks. Today a strong narrative has reached global proportions: activists, epistemic communities, NGOs, IGOs, and governments are acknowledging the scope and extent of slavery in the twenty-first century. One need only point to Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wu Dunn’s bestseller Half the Sky, President Barack Obama’s 2012 speech at the Clinton Global Intiative, or the awareness that celebrities such as Mira Sorvino and Jada Pinkett Smith are raising about the subject to illustrate how far the antislavery movement has progressed.1 Yet despite such civic mindedness, surprisingly little data and empirically driven research exist on slavery today. Although some headway has been made in estimating its prevalence -- most notably in the form of contributions by Kevin Bales and by the International Labor Organization (ILO) -- apart from a rough estimate of how many slaves exist in the world today (21 to 27 million), scholars and policy makers know little about the risk factors -- let alone the business impact -- that contemporary slavery has on the global community.2 Indeed, most extant research, although useful, is qualitative, not allowing for statistical models.3 To what extent is slavery empirically bad for business? For whom is the business of slavery profitable, and for whom is it economically burdensome

Adapting Human Rights

Governmental leaders, scholars, and activists have advocated for human rights to food, water, education, health care, and energy. Such rights, also called positive rights, place an affirmative duty upon the state to provide a minimum quantity and quality of these goods and services to all citizens. But food, education, water, and health care are so different–in how they are produced, consumed, and financed–that the implementation of a positive right must be adapted to the distinctive characteristics of the good or service it guarantees. The primary aims of this adaptive implementation are transparency, enforceability and sustainability in the provision of positive rights. Only by adapting a positive right to its policy environment can such a right function as a viable means of protecting disadvantaged members of society. This article uses the example of positive rights to public utilities, such as water and energy, to illustrate adaptive implementation of positive rights. In doing so, this article explains why and how a positive right must be adapted to the unique policy environment of a given public utility

Social security, care and the "withdrawing state" in rural Russia

This chapter presents the development of a research project, exploring the ways in which social security is produced and experienced in rural Russia. Based on a case study of Burla village, the project investigates the ways in which caring practices and material support are provided by and exchanged within a range of formal and informal, state and non-state, community and kinship structures This chapter begins by exploring the theoretical and contextual frameworks for the study through a discussion of theoretical approaches to understanding “social security”, “care” and “the state”, followed by a review of existing literature on welfare, social security and rural life in contemporary Russia. It then goes on to present and discuss early findings from fieldwork conducted in March 2008 and April 2009

A parallel approach to analysis of costs/benefits and efficiency changes resulting from privatisation of health services

The marketisation of public health care systems is part of a long process, which is not necessarily clearly set out or understood at the beginning. Public policy plays an important role in creating internal markets and changing public health care systems. The findings of this review show that there are now recognisable steps in the process of moving from a state/ government run health care system to a marketised and privatised system but this can take place over many years