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15338 results in Economic development and growth

Page 340 of 767

  • 23.1 - alternative perspective

    • By Dale Whittington, Professor, Departments of Environmental Sciences & Engineering, and City & Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, and Manchester Business School, UK
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 443-443

  • Summary

    Summary

    Guy Hutton's chapter is part of a series of publications from the WHO and World Bank that suggest the benefits of water and sanitation interventions in developing countries are an order of magnitude or more higher than the costs of improved services. However, I challenge this finding on a number of grounds, particularly related to the assumptions made in the economic analysis.

    The benefit-cost analysis rests on two assumptions, that each person's well-being is to count, and count according to their own valuation, and that this is also the valuation placed on the change by society. The challenge is to learn about individuals’ preferences and measure the strength of these in monetary terms, either via the willingness to pay (WTP) for the outcome or the willingness to accept (WTA) compensation to forego the change.

    Some experts are reluctant to measure benefits in terms of expressed preferences because they believe that people do not fully understand either the benefit or the causal relationship between hygiene and health. They are thus inclined to substitute their own assessment of the benefits into the benefit-cost calculation, which creates a challenge for BCA. In simple terms, if the benefit-cost ratio of a WASH intervention is 10:1, or even 20:1 as suggested in the chapter, why don't individuals rush to adopt these interventions?

    The reasonableness of the benefit estimate depends largely on the accuracy of the estimates of time saving, which is what delivers the greatest benefit. Consider one of the sources of time savings – not walking to an open defecation site. If we assume a rural household of two adults and three children, the monthly benefits estimated in the chapter would be about US$5 per month, but would everyone actually change their behavior? In practice, in rural India, there is evidence that many people prefer to practice open defecation, which means that the benefit in the chapter must be considered highly speculative and subject to a high level of uncertainty.

    A similar argument applies to the benefits of avoided mortality. The human capital approach has no theoretical justification; a WTP figure would give a much lower benefit, particularly in poor communities, but some experts are uncomfortable with this. The substitution of expert judgment gives the appearance of greater certainty in the benefit estimates and, in many situations, inflates the economic benefits.

  • Chapter 25 - Good Governance and the Sustainable Development Goals

  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 475-500

  • Summary

    This paper is one of a series focusing on benefit-cost analysis of proposed targets in different sectors, in order to contribute to the discussion with realistic analysis of targets in terms of their likely costs and benefits. As noted above, the proposal to introduce governance targets raises fundamental questions that need to be addressed prior to that of economic costs and benefits. Furthermore, costs and benefits with regard to governance reforms are less amenable to being measured than in other areas, and only general estimations are possible, at best. Thus, this paper will first address several prior issues: the global governance agenda, measurement and data issues, the relationship between governance and development, and the record of governance reform efforts. Then it will assess a subset of proposed targets, with attention to benefit and costs, as well as other criteria, including a number of problems and risks.

  • 10 - Benefits and Costs of the Health Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

    • By Prabhat Jha, Professor of Economics, Canada Research Chair of Health and Development at the University of Toronto, Canada and Founding Director of the Centre for Global Health Research, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada, Ryan Hum, Special Lecturer, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada, Cindy L. Gauvreau, Post-Doctoral Fellow/ Economist, Centre for Global Health Research, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada, Keely Jordan, Health Policy Analyst, University of California, San Francisco, USA
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 219-230

  • Summary

    Introduction

    A variety of development priorities have been proposed for 2030 as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to follow the highly-influential 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These proposed goals cover a wide range of development objectives, including SDG3, “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” Within the overarching health goal, many subgoals have been proposed, some of which are realistic and others that are not (Norheim et al., 2014). Common frameworks to evaluate these disparate goals are required by national governments and global agencies.

    One proposed method to evaluate goals is benefit-cost analyses (BCAs), expressed as some monetary value of the benefits divided by the costs (benefit-cost ratios, or BCR) of achieving these benefits. A BCR greater than one for an assessed intervention indicates that it is socially beneficial compared to the next best use of the same resources. A ranking of interventions by the size of their BCRs is one step in allowing the prioritization according to the relative benefits they provide to society. (Note that a goal with a high societal benefit, such as universal education of girls, might not necessarily have a higher BCR than other interventions). In the case of health, high coverage of individual interventions are seldom achieved without an extensive delivery system comprising community outreach of services, first referral, and specialty hospitals, as well as supportive services for quality, patient safety, monitoring and evaluation, and other services (Jha and Laxminarayan, 2009). Moreover, some interventions (such as immunization) reduce deaths beyond the specific diseases they cover, by, for example, increasing the nutritional standing of children. The impact of increased access through universal healthcare is also not easily quantified through BCA. Therefore, traditional BCA, applied to individual interventions, fails to fully capture the cumulative and synergistic benefits or costs of implementation within a health system and in tandem with other health-promoting activities.

    Thus, overall goals of reducing child and adult mortality are required as an overarching framework target. However, it should also be emphasized that within this framework, careful consideration be given to the specific subpopulation needs for each major age group (0–4, 5–49, and 50–69 years), as they differ in disease patterns.

  • 17 - Benefits and Costs of Digital Technology: Infrastructure Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 295-319

  • Summary

    Introduction: The Importance of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development

    Expanding affordable access to information communication technologies (ICTs) infrastructure has become a priority for policy makers, both in developing and developed countries, as ICTs are important enablers for social inclusion and economic development. ICT infrastructure has an impact on growth through several channels: productivity gains, enhanced innovation and new ways to market goods and services, employment, and firm creation, among others (Pepper et al., 2009). The social inclusion dimension is the potential to offer services (e.g., health, education, and e-government) to all communities, however remote.

    Sustainable Development Goals and Targets Regarding ICTs

    Millennium Development Goals and Post 2015 Agenda: Where Do the Targets Lie in Terms of ICTs?

    The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has followed up on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 8F (Develop a Global Partnership for Development), which states: “In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communication technologies.” The ITU uses the following indicators to track this target: telephone lines and cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants, and computers and Internet subscribers per 100 inhabitants. For example, Figure 17.1 displays mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants (i.e., mobile voice penetration) in developed and developing regions of the world based on ITU statistics.

    There has been extensive debate of what goals should be included in the Post-2015 Agenda with regard to ICTs. Although covered explicitly in Goal 9 of the June 2014 Outcome Document of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the availability of ICTs also has a bearing on other areas such as lifelong learning and gender equality. Goal 9c states: “Significantly increase access to ICT and strive to provide universal and affordable access to Internet in LDCs [least developed countries] by 2020.” The question is, what is a “significant” increase? In addition, this target seems to imply universal access to the Internet in five years’ time, which may be unrealistic.

  • 2.2 - alternative perspective

  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 52-53

  • Summary

    This perspective explores in greater depth part of the cost-benefit analysis undertaken by Markandya, particularly for Sustainable Development Goal 15.2: By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all type of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests, and increase afforestation and reforestation by x percent globally.

    Although the implementation costs of measures to achieve the Aichi targets have been estimated during a specific program of work, the same is not the case for the benefits. Looking at ecosystem services for both tropical and temperate forest biomes, we find that the largest category for tropical forest is provisioning services (43 percent of value), while for temperate forest 49 percent relates to cultural services (largely recreation).

    The majority of tropical forest valuations use market value type estimates. By contrast, nearly 60 percent of the temperate forest values are from stated preference techniques (contingent valuation, choice experiments). This raises a number of important issues; arguably the key ones with respect to the use of these extant values are passive use values and nonmarginal values.

    The estimates collected for valuation databases typically reflect marginal changes in the provision of ecosystem services. They are not appropriate for estimating the total value of an ecosystem. Put simply, can we defensibly use a $/ha value originally elicited for changing forest extent at one site by 10 ha to value changes totalling thousands of hectares on a global scale? Nevertheless, existing value estimates are likely to be the only reasonable source for global cost-benefit analysis.

    We can estimate benefits on a regional basis by using spatial variables to account for differences. Value functions can be used to allow for the impact of different variables. For example, smaller sites have higher values per hectare, consistent with diminishing marginal utility, and the extent of urban areas within 50 km also increases per ha values of forest. Values across regions also reflect variables such as income levels.

    The total losses from deforestation from 2000 to 2050 reported by Markandya range from US$334 billion to US$1,118 billion, compared to a total undiscounted value of US$1,322 billion implied by the value functions in this perspective.

  • 21 - Benefits and Costs of the Population and Demography Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

    • By Hans-Peter Kohler, Frederick J. Warren Professor of Demography, University of Pennsylvania, USA, Jere R. Behrman, W. R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Economics and Director of Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, USA
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 375-394

  • Summary

    Background

    Prioritizing the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda on Population and Demography requires a recognition that national demographic trajectories are currently more diverse than in the middle and late twentieth century. Wealthy countries of Europe, Asia, and the Americas face rapid population aging, while Africa and some countries in Asia prepare for the largest cohort of young people the world has ever seen. And many of the world's poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to face premature mortality, high fertility, and often unmet need for contraception.

    The Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Population Dynamics (UNFPA, UNDESA, UN-HABITAT, IOM, 2013; thereafter GTC-PD Report) highlights three central aspects of how population dynamics affect the post-2015 development agenda:

  • Population dynamics are at the center of the main development challenges of the twenty-first century and must therefore be addressed in the post-2015 development agenda.

  • Mega population trends – population growth, population aging, migration, and urbanization – present both important developmental challenges and opportunities that have direct and indirect implications for social, economic, and environmental development.

  • Demography is not destiny. Rights-based and gender-responsive policies can address and harness population dynamics.

    • The GTC-PD Report then groups the specific policy options in four thematic priority areas: high fertility and population growth, low fertility and population aging, migration and human mobility, and urbanization. Closely related recommendations were adopted as part of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Beyond 2014 Global Report (UNFPA, 2014), which is the culmination of a landmark UN review of progress, gaps, challenges and emerging issues in relation to the ICPD Programme of Action. These two reports are important because they are likely to shape the international agenda on population.

    The goal of this chapter is to discuss the post- 2015 development agenda in the area of Population and Demography, focusing primarily on aspects of population size, age structure, and geographic distribution. It is important also to highlight that “population quality,” including human capital such as health and education, is an important further aspect of population dynamics that is essential for addressing the challenges of future population changes and for realizing the benefits of population dynamics for social, economic, and environmental development (Behrman and Kohler, 2014).

  • 13 - Benefits and Costs of TB Control for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

    • By Anna Vassall, Senior Lecturer in Health Economics, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 255-265

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The economic case for investment in tuberculosis (TB) control is compelling. TB control has been part of an essential package of health services for most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) for decades, based on TB control's relatively high returns. The economic case, put simply, is that TB treatment is low cost and highly effective and on average may give an individual in the middle of their productive life around 20 additional years of life, resulting in substantial economic and health return. Yet, to date, globally TB control is underfunded, both in relative and absolute terms (Floyd et al., 2013). The most recent global estimates suggest a resource gap of around US$2 billion per year (World Health Organization, 2014), with TB receiving less than 4 percent of total development assistance for health (compared to HIV receiving 25 percent, and maternal and child health around 20 percent) in 2011 (Viz Hub).

    Background

    In 2010, TB was ranked 13th in terms of its contribution to the global burden of disease, primarily impacting LMICs and the world's poor (Lozano et al., 2012). Over 9 million individuals fell ill with TB in 2013, and the annual number of deaths from TB was estimated at 1_4 million persons in 2013, which is on par with other major killers such as HIV and malaria (Murray et al., 2014). Around 13 percent of the annual cases of TB and around 30 percent of all TB deaths are among persons living with HIV (Zumla et al., 2013). HIV increases the risk of mortality, and the presentation of TB in those living with HIV is atypical, meaning that TB, in those living with HIV, can be difficult to diagnose (Zumla et al., 2013).

    TB has two stages: latent infection and active TB. Over two billion people worldwide are latently infected, and 5 percent of those develop active TB within 18 months, with a further 5 percent risk of developing active TB over a lifetime. The risk of developing the active form increases substantially after HIV infection. Most TB responds well to standard drug treatment, but there were almost half a million cases of multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) in 2013, with over 10 percent of these cases being extensively drug-resistant (XDR-TB) in some countries.

  • 3 - Benefits and Costs of the Climate Change Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

    • By Isabel Galiana, Lecturer, Department of Economics, McGill School of Environment, Montreal, Canada
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 54-63

  • Summary

    Introduction

    It has been argued that climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity and yet is not explicitly targeted in the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but falls rather under Goal 7's (Ensure Environmental Sustainability) target 1, “Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources,” and less directly through Goal 8: “Global partnership for development.” Since their implementation in 2000, the MDGs have been shown to be quite successful in mobilizing support for health, hunger, and education. The subprioritization of climate change recognizes an implicit conflict between development, with the energy use (and emissions) it entails, and climate policy. Climate changemitigation in emerging and developing countries could be harmful from a development perspective if it slows economic growth by requiring more costly, low-carbon energy sources (Jakob and Steckel, 2013).

    This chapter discusses and evaluates common and innovative global climate policy targets and metrics within a benefit-cost framework appropriate for use as post-2015 goals. Moreover, it highlights the potential for the UN post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals to acknowledge current technological limitations and developmental objectives facing policy makers and thus identify policies that are regionally acceptable, appropriate, and most important, effective in slowing global warming.

    International Climate Cooperation

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created over a quarter century ago toassess the risks associated with anthropogenic climate change. In 1992 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was created to help establish enforceable treaties to “avoid dangerous climate change” through yearly Conferences of the Parties (COPs). The past 26 years of climate negotiations have shown that establishing such an agreement is a highly challenging task. In 1996 the goal of limiting climate change to a 2_C rise in average global temperature came on the scene and has become a key focus of the international climate debate. Despite much media attention and repeated negotiations within the UNFCCC framework, if measured by performance, global climate policy has failed. Since 1990 the globe has witnessed a steady rise in emissions, only halted by the global recession, with carbon dioxide emissions having increased by more than 46 percent.

  • 17.1 - alternative perspective

  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 320-321

  • Summary

    Summary

    Studies have shown that adoption of broadband is associated with faster economic growth via three broad categories of impact: “direct” effects on employment and GDP during investment, “indirect” effects associated with the telecom sector supply chain, and “induced” effects in the wider economy. But, in fact, there are a number of factors specific to each economy that determine overall impact, with institutions and regulations in particular being key enablers to unlock the economic benefits.

    Auriol and Fanfalone make a credible effort to analyze an inherently complex undertaking. The focus on broadband indicators – availability, quality, and affordability – is a valid step forward. However, broadband penetration alone is used to assess costs and benefits, as a proxy of network adoption. Speed is excluded from the list, despite the fact that policy makers around the world are prepared to make considerable investments in faster networks, which they often expect to deliver increased benefits. The analysis presents only a fixed impact across technologies, thus making the cheaper ones score higher in terms of the costbenefit approach. This is not unexpected, but still represents a simplification of the actual situation.

    A common – implicit – assumption in these undertakings is that broadband availability is the same as adoption, which is not necessarily true. Connecting the unconnected yields economic benefits orders of magnitude greater than simply upgrading existing subscribers to higher speeds, especially in the least developed countries (LDC) context. Besides, the marginal impact of broadband in developing countries is never contrasted to the generic effect of the broader global targets. Ideally, these targets should also form part of a wider approach to some key challenges. For example increasing broadband penetration by 10 percent in LDCs can have a range of effects across the post-2015 agenda: reducing poverty (SDG 1), increasing access to education (SDG 4), improving health monitoring, prevent outbreaks of epidemics (SDG 4), and investing in local infrastructure (SDG 9).

    The study builds on projections for developing countries based on evidence from rich economies, which can be misleading. At the same time, it takes a relatively naïve approach in devising broadband targets based on the access medium (fixed or mobile) instead of more cost-effective scenarios that take into account regional population densities and foreseen usage.

  • 19 - Benefits and Costs of the Gender Equality Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 339-363

  • Summary

    Introduction: The Current Situation and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), What Has Been Achieved?

    Women in the developing world are the ones that suffer the most from poverty, poor health, lack of education, unequal rights, and violence. Remarkable progress has been made in some areas, aided by some of the MDGs, but there is still a long way to go. This chapter reviews the goals and targets relating to gender equality in the UN High Level Panel's (HLP's) “A New Global Partnership” and makes recommendations for the post-2015 development agenda.

    Education

    The third MDG was specially targeted to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women. The main target of this goal was to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education. The gender gaps in primary school attendance have been reduced, but access to secondary and university-level education still remains highly unequal.

    Figures 19.1, 19.2, and 19.3 plot the female-tomale ratio in enrollments corresponding in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Differences in enrollment in primary education have decreased in all regions, but sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa are still lagging behind. The picture for enrollment in secondary education is not that positive, differences have been reduced somewhat but at a lower speed, and sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are regions that are falling behind. In regard to tertiary education, the reduction in inequality has been very minor everywhere.

    Employment

    The first MDG includes the target of achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people. According to UN estimates, due to the global financial crisis, both male and female labor force participation rates decreased slightly between 2000 and 2012 (73.8 to 72.7 percent and 48.6 to 47.9 percent, respectively). Figure 19.4 shows the female-to-male labor force participation rates by region between 1989 and 2011. From the graph, it looks like the gender disparity has not decreased much, and disparities are still large in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

  • 3.2 - alternative perspective

    • By Carolyn Fischer, Senior Fellow and Associate Director, Resources for the Future
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 66-66

  • Summary

    Although concurring with some of the broad conclusions of the challenge chapter, there is no scientific consensus that a limit of 450 ppm of CO2 does not pass a cost-benefit test; in fact, broad political consensus implies that limiting temperature rise to 2°C is cost effective. Neither are annual emissions caps inherently costly, depending on the policy measures used to achieve them. Overall, bringing fossil fuel prices more in line with their social costs necessarily produces greater benefits, which suggests that negotiating higher and converging carbon prices may hold more promise than trying to agree on quantity targets.

    Any policy portfolio that focuses primarily on R&D and/or renewable energy deployment is inherently more costly than one that incorporates a fundamental role for carbon pricing, which encourages the use of all abatement options. To avoid costly delay in taking action on mitigation while waiting for international agreement on emissions targets, we should immediately work toward aligning the prices of emitting energy sources with their social costs – removing fossil fuel subsidies, using market-based mechanisms to regulate conventional air pollutants, and pricing carbon.

    Galiana cites a few studies, which find that even less-ambitious stabilization targets than 2are unlikely to be cost effective in a conventional analysis. However, models are limited in their ability to estimate the full range of potential costs and do not necessarily take account of possible catastrophic damage caused by uncertain events. Neither can modeling address the ethical and distributional effects of climate change. Environmental justice argues for an even lower target, for example, to protect vulnerable small island states. In contrast to the challenge chapter, the IEA emphasizes the feasibility of meeting climate goals cost effectively with existing technologies.

    Bringing down the cost of low-carbon technologies – or even finding breakthrough technologies – has many advantages, particularly in a worldreluctant to take costly measures to reduce emissions. If low-carbon energy sources can become cost-competitive on their own, they will naturally displace fossil-based sources. This is particularly relevant fo r developing countries, which could then decarbonize without sacrificing growth.

  • Chapter 23 - Global Benefits and Costs of Achieving Universal Coverage of Basic Water and Sanitation Services as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 422-445

  • Summary

    Water is covered as a single issue in Sustainable Development Goal 6, as well as other SDGs such as disaster risk reduction, education, health, nutrition and gender. (UN-Water 2016a). Six targets are included in the water goal. Although global costing and cost-benefit studies have been previously conducted (Hutton and Varughese 2016, Hutton 2012), and a more recent study examined the approximate costs of an overall water goal (UNU and UNOSD 2013, UN-Water 2016b), a new study is required to understand the overall economic returns on expanding and sustainably operating WASH services according to the new service definitions and target dates, as well as the extent to which additional financing can be sourced. This study confirmed that drinking water supply and sanitation both generate high economic returns to society, with returns exceeding costs for all interventions at both 3% and 5% discount rates. The study showed that economic returns varied between different regions of the world. This variation is partly expected due to different relative price levels of water and sanitation services, and different capacity to benefit (such as existing disease rates). The variation is also likely to be due to weak data for some regions and countries (e.g. unit costs of services for Central Asia, Oceania, North Africa, Western Asia and developed countries).

  • 24.2 - alternative perspective

    • By Valerie Kozel, Associate Adjunct Professor, University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 474-474

  • Summary

    Summary

    The Copenhagen Consensus Center's initiative to sponsor “hard-nosed” assessments of the economic costs and benefits of proposed goals and targets, along with the strengths and weaknesses of data and methodologies to monitor progress, is providing welcome contributions to ongoing discussions. The chapter from John Gibson raises three questions: Do the proposed poverty targets strike the right balance between breadth, idealism, and realism? Is it appropriate to focus solely on extreme poverty ($1.25 a day)? and Are data and monitoring methodologies sufficiently robust and wellspecified to carry the debate forward?

    The proposed post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals are a broader and more ambitious set of development goals than the previous MDGs. The call to eradicate poverty “in all its forms everywhere” is very ambitious. None but the most idealistic believe that this goal – or the other SDG zero-goals – are possible to achieve. Gibson points out some of the underlying features of rapid poverty reduction in the past that are not likely to carry forward into the future. There is one important additional factor that may slow the pace of future poverty reduction: as policies and programs become more narrowly targeted and concentrate on groups that have been socially excluded or are discriminated against, they may not have widespread political support.

    Although the proposed targets have been criticized as being too ambitious, others argue that the $1.25 a day poverty line is not ambitious enough and has no relevance for middle- and upperincome countries. By this reckoning, a set of (higher-order) goals is needed that better capture the rising aspirations that all countries have for the well-being of their citizens. We take the view that “stretch” goals have an essential role in post-2015 SDG discussions. Reducing global poverty, as defined using a truly global standard that reflects standards that apply in all countries, would be an additional such goal to put alongside the proposed zero target for extreme poverty. Taking out the billion people in extreme poverty, and the billion who are prosperous by global standards, leaves five billion who are poor by standards of rich countries but not poor by the standards of the very poorest countries.

  • Chapter 2 - Targets for Biodiversity and Deforestation

  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 38-53

  • Summary

    This is a first attempt at estimating benefit-cost ratios for the biodiversity and deforestation targets. Benefits in particular require more analysis. Also, the potential linkages between different targets need to be examined. The two most promising targets investigated in terms of benefit-cost ration are ÒBy 2030, stem the loss of coral reefs by 50%Ó, which has a BCR of 95.3 and ÒReduce global forest loss by at least 50%Ó, which has a BCR between 29.7 and 99.4.

  • 9.1 - alternative perspective

    • By Bernard Hoekman, Robert Schuman Chair and Research Area Director of Global Economics, European University Institute, Italy
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 216-216

  • Summary

    Summary

    Anderson points out that global trade has grown strongly since 1990 and has been accompanied by rising real incomes. However, although average incomes in the East Asia and Pacific region have risen more than 1500 percent since 1960, the rise has been just 30 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. Economic policies that increased the costs of trade have been an important factor in this disappointing performance. Anderson, in his chapter, makes a compelling case for the large welfare benefits that could come from liberalizing trade in the Asia-Pacific region in the absence of a global agreement on the Doha Development Agenda, but it would seem important to include consideration of reforms that encompass developing countries in the rest of the world.

    Analysis shows that many developing countries impose import restrictions, which are generally much higher for agricultural produce and that nontariff measures (NTMs) represent a substantial share of merchandise trade barriers. Barriers to trade in services are also on average substantially higher in emerging economies than OECD countries. This makes it important to consider reductions in NTMs and service trade restrictions as well as tariffs and trade-distorting agricultural support policies in the assessments of gains from trade reform. The DDA therefore only partially captures the potential net benefits of global trade reforms.

    Although there is scope for widening and improving the DDA, it has delivered one positive outcome that will generate large net benefits: the Bali Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). Full implementation has been estimated to reduce average trade costs in developing nations by about 10 percent, which will generate large welfare gains.

    Overall gains from raising trade facilitation performance to even half that of global best practice could increase global GDP by 5 percent, six times more than removing all remaining import tariffs. Higher implementation costs would mean BCRs are lower than for tariff reform and subsidy reduction, but the overall benefits would be far greater.

    Trade is not and should not be a goal in itself. Instead the focus should be on enhancing opportunities for firms to use trade and enhancing the real incomes of consumers in developing countries. Current goals proposed for the post-2015 agenda have a mercantilist focus on exports as opposed to trade overall. Imports can benefit local firms by providing inputs needed for exports, reducing prices, and improving the quality of goods on the domestic market.

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