Studying the way legal and regulatory policymaking affect small businesses and entrepreneurship
RAND's research into entrepreneurship considers how it can address critical social problems and the role that public policy plays in fostering or impeding innovation through entrepreneurship. Our work addresses these issues in several policy areas: health care, civil justice, energy and criminal justice. In addition, RAND research is focusing on the role of technology transfer and commercialization in innovation and the utilization of small businesses in U.S. government contracting.
This case study describes the work of civil society organisations to introduce a law in Peru to prohibit the use of physical and psychological violence towards children. It offers valuable lessons for others aiming to inform policy change through children advocacy.
Trends in military medical discharges and disability ratings can help the U.S. Department of Defense set goals for diagnosing, treating, and evaluating service members with posttraumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury.
The authors analyze trends in disability outcomes by identifying cohorts of service members who were diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury (TBI) and look prospectively at medical discharge and other career outcomes. They also look retrospectively at service members who were medically discharged with a disability rating for PTSD or TBI and examine trends in diagnoses, treatments, and other service outcomes.
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) policies for medically evaluating service members have changed considerably since 2001, with major changes to the disability evaluation system beginning in 2007. Simultaneously, DoD also implemented new policies in response to the "signature injuries" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The authors review these concurrent developments.
This brief describes the model of the Weinberg Center (the nation's first elder-specific shelter), examines some client outcomes, and begins to quantify the model's costs and benefits for older adults experiencing abuse or mistreatment.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic required significant public health interventions from local governments. To help in those decisions, researchers used the Robust Decision Making approach to stress-test California's COVID-19 reopening strategy. This Perspective presents lessons learned from these experiments and outlines four characteristics of the best strategies.
Elder abuse or mistreatment (EM) is a widespread problem with devastating consequences. This report presents an evaluation of the nation's first elder-specific shelter, the Weinberg Center. The authors focus on the shelter's model, which aims to benefit individuals experiencing EM. The authors also examine some Weinberg client outcomes and begin to quantify the model's costs and benefits for those experiencing EM and wider societal benefits.
The Biden administration will reassess the U.S. defense budget &mash; a decision that involves balancing trade-offs between defense spending and economic growth. In this report, the authors consider what the effect on growth would be if the United States were to reallocate funds from defense to infrastructure spending, change defense spending and apply the difference to U.S. public debt, or increase taxes to finance defense spending.
