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AbstractThe Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program is a key part of America's safety net, but its structure fails to incentivize participants to be cost‐conscious in their purchases and may cause retailers to attach excessive markups to WIC products. We investigate cost containment in the WIC Program, with a focus on California. Results show that smaller vendors often charge considerably higher prices for WIC foods than their larger counterparts. However, larger vendors do not mark up WIC foods more or promote them less than comparable control products. Cost containment can be improved by targeting WIC Program sales to larger vendors when it is possible to do so without compromising participant access, and using large‐vendor prices as a benchmark to limit prices set by smaller vendors.

Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Surging amounts of waste are reported globally and especially in lower-income countries, with negative consequences for health and the environment. Increasing concern has been raised for the limited progress achieved in practice by diverse sets of policies and programmes. Waste management is a wicked problem characterised by multilayered interdependencies, complex social dynamics and webs of stakeholders. Interactions among these generate unpredictable outcomes that can be missed by decision makers through their understanding and framing of their context. This article aims to identify possible sources of persistent problems by focussing on what captures, shapes and limits the attention of stakeholders and decision-makers, drawing on the attention-based view from organisation theory. The theory describes the process through which issues and opportunities are noticed and how these are translated into actions, by focussing on the influencers at the individual, organisational and context scale. Views on issues and opportunities for waste management were collected in a series of fieldwork activities from 60 participants representing seven main types of stakeholders in the typical lower-middle income Kenyan city of Kisumu. Through a thematic analysis guided by the attention-based view, we identified patterns and misalignment of views, especially between government, community-based organisations and residents, which may contribute to persistent waste problems in Kisumu. Some point to detrimental waste handling practices, from separation to collection and treatment, as the main cause of issues. For others, these practices are due to a poor control of such practices and enforcement of the law. This study's major theoretical contribution is extending the application of attention theory to multi-stakeholder problems and to non-formalized organisations, namely residents and to the new field of waste management. This novel lens contributes a greater understanding of waste issues and their ...

Evidence-based policymaking (EBP) contends that policy decisions are successful when informed by evidence. However, where policy problems are "wicked" (systemic, ambiguous, complex, and conflictual), politics trumps evidence and solutions are never first best or permanent. Applying an EBP approach to solving wicked problems (WPs) therefore appears to be a daunting, impossible task. Despite the difficulties, we contend that blending insights from the EBP and WP literatures can provide actionable and practical policy advice to governments and MNEs for dealing with the WPs of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We support our thesis with a case study applying EBP to the WP of SDG 5 Gender Equality. We compare the statistical evidence from gender inequality indexes to SDG 5's targets and indicators. We provide five insights from the EBP and WP literatures into why and how good evidence is necessary but not sufficient for progress on SDG 5. Building on these insights, we recommend that governments adopt an EBP approach employing public–private partnerships to address SDG 5. We also recommend that MNE executives use our new SDG Materiality Matrix, designed on EBP principles, to build SDG 5 into their global corporate social responsibility strategies.

Surging amounts of waste are reported globally and especially in lower-income countries, with negative consequences for health and the environment. Increasing concern has been raised for the limited progress achieved in practice by diverse sets of policies and programmes. Waste management is a wicked problem characterised by multilayered interdependencies, complex social dynamics and webs of stakeholders. Interactions among these generate unpredictable outcomes that can be missed by decision makers through their understanding and framing of their context. This article aims to identify possible sources of persistent problems by focussing on what captures, shapes and limits the attention of stakeholders and decision-makers, drawing on the attention-based view from organisation theory. The theory describes the process through which issues and opportunities are noticed and how these are translated into actions, by focussing on the influencers at the individual, organisational and context scale. Views on issues and opportunities for waste management were collected in a series of fieldwork activities from 60 participants representing seven main types of stakeholders in the typical lower-middle income Kenyan city of Kisumu. Through a thematic analysis guided by the attention-based view, we identified patterns and misalignment of views, especially between government, community-based organisations and residents, which may contribute to persistent waste problems in Kisumu. Some point to detrimental waste handling practices, from separation to collection and treatment, as the main cause of issues. For others, these practices are due to a poor control of such practices and enforcement of the law. This study's major theoretical contribution is extending the application of attention theory to multi-stakeholder problems and to non-formalized organisations, namely residents and to the new field of waste management. This novel lens contributes a greater understanding of waste issues and their management in Africa that is ...

Families provide priceless support to members with disabilities. Without the support of families the lives of most individuals with disabilities would be diminished in comfort, independence, opportunity, and caring relationships. Without the support provided to individuals with disabilities by family members, public expenditures for nonfamily assistance would be several times what is currently expended. In its responsibilities to the well‐being of individual citizens and to the efficient and effective use of public resources, governments struggle to accommodate the great diversity among families in what they want and what they need. Governments are challenged in targeting limited resources to reach those who need them most, in the amounts that are most cost‐effective, and in a manner that is most beneficial to the family and its member(s) with disabilities. The attention on support to families is further complicated by changes in families and their individual members as they pass through lifecycles of changing relationships, expectations, aspirations, and capabilities. This article offers a modest commentary on how in the midst of such complexities our society can develop fair, effective, and cost‐beneficial approaches to supporting families and their individual members.

Terrorist attacks can be seen as the ultimate wicked problem. After 9/11, terrorists moved from so-called 'spectacular' events to relatively low-intensity attacks against individuals and groups. The emergence of what has become known as the 'home-grown' terrorist has added a further dimension to the 'wicked' nature of the problem. This paper considers the UK's CONTEST and PREVENT strategies as a policy response to the threats from terrorism and the impact that the policies themselves can have on the radicalization of individuals. The author highlights some of the limitations of the PREVENT strand of the overall strategy and the constraints that are imposed on government policies by failing to take a holistic perspective on the nature of the problem.

AbstractRecent protests in Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile, as well as tense elections in Peru, Ecuador, and Chile, suggest strong polarization. At their heart lies a dispute for the development model. The plurality of factions and vindications underscore the plurality of development notions, rendering the situation a wicked problem. Grid group cultural theory makes sense of such complexity, identifying four irreducible cultures and their respective development models—illustrated by neoliberalism, the developmental state, multiple alternatives such as Sumak Kawsay, and a chimera. To address this problem effectively and legitimately, all models must be engaged to produce clumsy solutions. Further, each culture has its own pathway to harness this plurality. These are messy institutions whose shape, as well as that of clumsy development models, will depend on the relative power of each culture and the context in which they are located. It could be beneficial to incorporate these insights into research on and the practice of development governance in the Andean Region.