Friday, June 04, 2004 :::
My hero -- and maybe yours -- Bjorn Lomborg got a group of experts together to consider the costs and benefits of attacking different problems in the world and determining which ones should take precedence. It's the sort of idea which, taken too far, quickly becomes Soviet. But if you limit it to its proper domain -- and, preferably, provide the analyses, the data, and their sources for all to critique -- it can be a healthy exercise. Here's what they came up with:The panel assigned the highest priority to new measures to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. Spending assigned to this purpose would yield extraordinarily high benefits, averting nearly 30m new infections by 2010. Costs are substantial, estimated at $27 billion. Even so, these costs are small in relation to what stands to be gained. Moreover, the scale and urgency of the problem -- especially in Africa, where AIDS threatens the collapse of entire societies -- are extreme.
Policies to attack hunger and malnutrition followed close behind. Reducing the prevalence of iron-deficiency anemia by means of food supplements, in particular, has an exceptionally high ratio of benefits to costs; of the three proposals considered under this heading, this was ranked highest at $12 billion...
The panel considered three main proposals for global trade reform: first, multilateral and unilateral reduction of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, together with the elimination of agricultural subsidies; second, extension of regional trade agreements; third, adoption of the "Everything But Arms (EBA)" proposal for non-reciprocal lowering of rich-country tariffs on exports from the least developed countries. In the case of trade reform, lives are not directly and immediately at risk. However, the first proposal -- free trade -- was agreed to yield exceptionally large benefits, in relation to comparatively modest adjustment costs, both for the world as a whole and for the developing countries. Accordingly it was ranked third. (Some members of the panel argued that since this proposal need not involve any budgetary outlays, it should be acted upon in any case, regardless of the resources available for additional budget outlays.) The proposal to extend regional FTAs was not ranked, for lack of information on particular agreements.
New measures for the control and treatment of malaria were jointly ranked fourth. At $13 billion in costs, the ratio of benefits to costs was somewhat lower than for the proposals on HIV/AIDS and hunger and malnutrition, but still extremely high by the ordinary standards of project appraisal. This is especially so for the provision of chemically-treated bednets. Again, the scale and urgency of the problem are very great. I have less time than I'd like to evaluate the transparency of the project, but I'm likely to consider anything backed by Lomborg to at least be a step in the right direction, at least paradigmaticly.
::: posted by Steven at 1:09 AM
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