The bureaucracy and public policy: Canadian merger policy and the Combines Branch, 1960–71

Abstract. This paper investigates the implications for public policy in general and merger sections of the Combines Act in particular of the hypothesis that bureaus, when carrying out their administrative duties, attempt to maximize their private utility functions rather than the social utility function expressed in the legislation. The analytical procedure, given alternative utility goals of power, prestige, convenience, and security and the appropriate constraints, is to predict the behaviour of the Combines Branch (from 1960–71) and to test these predictions against actual Branch behaviour. The evidence on the Branch's behaviour (all cases prosecuted and discontinued) suggests that its conduct can be better explained by security maximization than by any alternative private or altruistic goal. However, it is not clear that this was a bad thing for public policy because it can be argued that the Branch's behaviour brought public policy in this area closer to the social welfare function implied in the legislation than would have been the case if the government had successfully maximized its private utility function. Sommaire. L'auteur de cet exposé enquête sur les implications, pour la politique publique en général et les articles sur le fusionnement de la loi sur les coalitions en particulier, de l'hypothèse suivant laquelle es bureaux, dans l'exercice de leurs responsabilités administratives, essaient de maximiser leurs fonctions privées plutôt que leur fonction sociale, telle qu'elle est indiquée dans la législation. La procédure analytique, étant donné le choix des buts: pouvoirs, prestige, commodité et sécurité, avec Ies limites appropriées, consiste à prédire le comportement du service chargé des coalitions (de 1965 à 1971) et à vérifier ces prédictions à la lumière de son comportement réel. Les faits relatifs au comportement de ce service (tous les cas amenés en justice et ceux qui ont été abondonnés) indiquent qu'il s'explique plus par une maximisation de la sécurité que par tout autre motif privé ou altruiste. Il ne semble pas cependant que cela ait été néfaste à la politique publique parce que l'on peut argumenter que le comportement du service a fait jouer à la politique publique un rôle plus orienté vers le bien-être social, comme cela était sous-entendu dam la législation, que ce n'aurait été le cas si le gouvernement avait maximisé avec succès sa fonction privée.     

Childhood poverty and evidence-based policy engagement in Ethiopia

This article explores efforts to bridge multi-disciplinary research and policy engagement to tackle child poverty in the contexts of developing countries, based on the experiences of Young Lives, an international longitudinal policy-research project. It focuses on a case study involving the application of research evidence on child poverty to shape policy debates concerning Ethiopia's second-generation Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2006–2010). The discussion is situated within theoretical literature on the interface between knowledge, policy, and practice, which supports the conceptualisation of policy making as a non-linear dynamic process. It pays particular attention to the importance of understanding the political and policy contexts of Southern countries, rather than assuming that they should simply import Northern-derived models of advocacy. It concludes by identifying general lessons for translating research into social-policy change.     

Chloroquine distribution in postmortem cases

Chloroquine concentrations in blood and tissues were examined in overdose and non-overdose cases to determine appropriate ranges for interpretation. Twenty-nine literature overdose cases and 8 non-overdose literature cases were compared with this laboratory's findings. The results indicate significant postmortem redistribution of chloroquine. Combining this laboratory's results and the literature results indicates that using a liver concentration of 150 mg/kg as a cutoff between overdose and non-overdose concentrations properly identified 30 of the 34 published cases containing liver chloroquine and 19 of the 20 presented cases.