Rationality and Rhetoric: The Contribution To Social Care Policy

Between 1982 and 1992 Roy Griffiths, then Managing Director of the Sainsbury supermarket chain, wrote two reports which led to significant changes in the organization and management of health and social services in the UK. This article provides a detailed account of the policy process which led to the latter of these reports, which dealt with community care, in order to assesses Griffiths' personal contribution to policy making.     

Transition, the Evolution of Stock Market Efficiency and Entry into EU: The Case of Romania

In this paper we demonstrate that the measurement of stock market efficiency is an important activity in establishing whether eastern European countries satisfy the Copenhagen Criteria for EU membership. Specifically, we argue that developing an efficient stock market should be an important policy focus for countries with aspirations to join the EU as it helps to demonstrate the existence of a functioning market economy. We illustrate this issue by examining the evolution of stock market efficiency in the Bucharest Stock Exchange from mid-1997 to September 2002. We use a GARCH model on daily price data and model the disturbances using the Student-t distribution to allow for ‘fat-tails’. We find strong evidence of inefficiency in the Bucharest Stock Exchange in that the lagged stock price index is a significant predictor of the current price index. This result is robust to the inclusion of variables controlling for calendar effects of the sort that have been observed in more developed stock markets. The level of inefficiency appears to diminish over time and we find evidence consistent with stock market efficiency in Romania after January 2000.     

A survey of glass fragments recovered from clothing of persons suspected of involvement in crime

The refractive indices (RI) of over 2000 glass fragments recovered from items of clothing submitted to the Birmingham and Wetherby Home Office forensic science laboratories in connection with crimes involving broken glass have been measured. The glass fragments have been classified according to their location on the clothing, and a grouping algorithm has been applied to the data.The refractive index distribution was found to be dependent on the location of the glass on the clothing. The significance of the results in the interpretation of glass evidence is discussed.     

Leading change through collaborative partnerships: a profile of leadership and capacity among local public health leaders

Collaborative partnerships have grown in prominence as vehicles for systems change and organizational development among a network of organizations, particularly in the complex field of public health. Likewise, supporting the functioning and effectiveness of collaborative partnerships has become a key interest among organizational development scholars and community psychologists alike. In the question of capacity-building, no aspect of collaborative capacity has received greater attention than that of leadership. Research on collaborative partnerships has highlighted the importance of shared leadership while at the same time acknowledging that specific individuals do and often must emerge and assume more prominent roles in the partnership in order for the work of the partnership to move forward. However, we have limited knowledge of these key individuals and the roles that they play in non-hierarchical, voluntary partnerships. The present study is a comparative case study of prominent leaders in three regional public health partnerships. The aim of this investigation is to explore the questions: (1) What does it mean to be a leader in a context where no one is "in charge?" (2) What roles do those individuals identified as leaders play?, and (3) What are the specific capacities that enable the enactment of these roles? We find that those viewed as leaders by their partnerships shared a similar profile both in the range and types of roles they play and the capacities that enable them to carry out these roles. Further, we find that while individual attributes such as passion, knowledge, and leadership skills are important, some of the most prominent capacities are rooted in the organizational and institutional contexts within which the leader is nested.     

Secrecy,Fear and Transaction Costs: The Business of Soviet Forced Labour in the Early Cold War

What does it cost to do business under a dictator? In 1949 the Soviet state had entered its most secretive phase. One of the Gulag's most important secrets was the location of its labour camps. As this secret was guarded more closely, camps found it increasingly difficult to do business without disclosing a state secret: their own location. For months and then years Gulag officials worked around this dilemma, expending considerable efforts. Rather than resolve it, they eventually normalised it. This study of the transaction costs of an autocratic regime raises basic questions about how Soviet secrecy was calibrated.     

Bombers and Bystanders in Suicide Attacks in Israel, 2000 to 2003

This article analyses the results of interaction between suicide operatives and bystanders in the course of 103 suicide attacks in Israel over a recent 3-year period. It shows that bystanders' intervention tended to reduce the casualties arising by numbers that were both statistically and practically significant. When bystanders intervened, however, this was often at the cost of their own lives. The value of a challenge was particularly large for suicide missions associated with Hamas, but Hamas operations were also less likely to meet a challenge in the first place. These findings, although preliminary, may have implications for counterterrorism. More systematic collection of statistical data relating to suicide incidents would be of benefit.     

Accounting for Changing Earnings Inequality in Costa Rica, 1980–99

After declining from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, inequality in monthly earnings in Costa Rica stabilised from 1987 to 1992 and then increased from 1992 to 1999. In this article, we use recently developed techniques to measure the extent to which these changes in earnings inequality were the result of changes associated with the distributions of personal and workplace characteristics of workers or the earnings differences associated with those characteristics. We present evidence that the most important cause of the fall in inequality prior to 1987 was a decline in returns to education. Inequality stopped falling in Costa Rica in the 1990s in part because returns to education stopped falling. The most important cause of rising inequality in monthly earnings in the 1990s was an increase in the proportion of workers working a non-standard work week (part-time or over-time).