This study presents two case studies, each on a current initiative of contracting for primary health services in Brazil, one for the state of Bahia, the other for the city of Rio de Janeiro. The two initiatives are not linked and their implementation has independently sprung from a search for...

Laboratories have historically been under supported in developing country health systems resulting in poor quality diagnosis and inadequate disease surveillance. Laboratory professionals are predominantly male with relatively limited female labor participation, with potential gender based...

The European Employment Strategy has set the goal of raising the retirement age of workers in the EU through a strategy of "active ageing". Yet despite some progress over the last decade, empirical data show persistent diversity across EU member states. Institutional arrangements of social and...

The increased promotion of energy production from biomass on European and national level leads to land use conflicts on regional and local level. These conflicts appear usually in the legal planning processes during the construction of biogas plants. Whereas the steering possibilities for...

This paper proposes a new framework for studying the effects of monetary policy on business investment. Important ambiguities with the modeling of investment dynamics and interactions between real and financial decisions suggest modeling investment spending as a VAR. Based on a panel of...