Expert insight, analysis and comment on key public policy issues
By Stuart Butler Filed Under: All posts Posted:
Today’s nurses have been accused of being “too posh to wash” and lacking compassion, writes Stuart Butler. But unless policymakers are willing to free up their time through further recruitment, or abandon their obsession with targets, they should learn to live with the professionalized work-force that is entirely of their own making. Rather uniquely […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: All posts Posted:
Thinks-tanks get a massive amount of (sometimes ill-deserved) attention, but they are small, usually ideologically biased and carry out only very limited research. We are big, neutral and carry out massive amounts of research – which doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. That is partly our fault, for not communicating our research well enough […]
By Carole Talbot Filed Under: All posts Posted:
The Political Power of the Business Corporation, Stephen Wilks. Edward Elgar. March 2013. In The Political Power of the Business Corporation, the author argues that making corporations accountable is one of the most fundamental problems facing 21st century society along with terrorism, nuclear war and epidemics. It provides both an up-to-date analysis of how big […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: All posts Posted:
The influential book “Nudge” (Thaler and Sunstein 2008) comes from the emerging field of behavioral economics, which investigates the non-rational ways in which people make decisions. Its policy implications are radical – it advocates what the authors call “libertarian paternalism”. This paradoxical prescription is based on the idea of ‘choice architecture’ – the notion that the way […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: All posts Posted:
This book has been causing a bit of a stir in policy circles in the UK – ‘The Spirit Level’ is not another diatribe for or against God, as the name might suggest, but a book about equality. The main message is fairly simple – affluent societies tend to suffer social ills like mental health problems, drug use, physical […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: All posts Posted:
This book looks at what makes ideas “stick” – why some ideas spread easily whilst others don’t. Being able to communicate effectively has become increasingly important for public managers in democratic states. “A medium-sized ‘butter’ popcorn at a typical neighborhood movie theatre contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries lunch, and […]