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5731 results in Natural resource and environmental economics

Page 90 of 287

  • Chapter 3 - Benefits and Costs of the Climate Change 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 54-66

  • Summary

    The results of this paper suggest a reconsideration of traditional climate policy that was designed to limit the level of total emissions per year and/or atmospheric concentrations. The traditional emission target approach has faced political resistance due to excessive costs associated with current technological limitations to the integration of low-carbon energy. Moreover, it often conflicts with the continued pursuit of economic growth and development. Despite various emission reduction agreements, globally there has been a steady rise in annual emissions and there is a vital need to pursue policies that address the drivers of emissions and the inevitable effects of rising emissions through adaptation.

  • Chapter 6 - Benefits and Costs of the Education 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 119-142

  • Summary

    Within education, the targets that have the highest benefit-cost ratios are: • Reducing by 50% the number of children who are not attending preschool in sub-Saharan Africa, which has a benefit-cost ratio of 28 to 39. • Increasing the primary education enrollment ratio in sub-Saharan Africa from 75% to 100%, which has a benefit-cost ratio between 8.0 and 8.5. These findings can be explained in terms of the relative scarcity of human capital in Africa versus other regions. Other valuable targets are: • Improving school quality by increasing student test scores by one standard deviation, which has a benefit-cost ratio between 3.0 and 5.0. • Ensuring secondary school completion which has a 2.1 to 4.4 benefit-cost ratio. However, the following targets are relatively ineffective or there is large uncertainty regarding the benefit-cost ratio: • Providing vocational education within the main school system. • Education and training programs for older workers. An overall conclusion of the paper is that the vast majority of the Post-2015 education targets could not be achieved by 2030, hence the need to prioritize based on the findings of cost-benefit analysis.

  • 20 - Benefits and Costs of the Food and Nutrition Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

    • By Susan Horton, CIGI Chair in Global Health Economics, University of Waterloo, Canada, John Hoddinott, H. E. Babcock Professor of Food & Nutrition Economics and Policy, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 367-374

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Nutrition has always been a key development indicator. Good nutrition allows for healthy growth and development of children, and inadequate nutrition is a major contributing factor to child mortality. Good nutrition is also important for cognitive development and, hence, educational success, both of which are important determinants of labor productivity and hence economic growth. Good nutrition also implies balance – neither undernutrition nor overnutrition.

    In what follows we will first briefly review the evolution of nutrition goals, from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to 2015, to the World Health Organization targets to 2025, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to 2030. We then comment briefly on the SDG target for nutrition and provide an economic perspective on the goal (using Hoddinott et al., 2013), suggesting that the benefit-cost ratio of nutrition investments is very attractive.

    The Evolution of the Nutrition Goals

    Stunting – low height for age – is an excellent nutrition indicator to include in the SDGs. It improves on the earlier nutrition indicator used in the MDGs. MDG 1 had two quantitative targets and one qualitative: halving the poverty rate, halving the number “hungry,” and a more aspirational goal regarding access to employment. “Hunger,” in turn, was defined in terms of the number of children who were underweight (using the WHO Child Growth Standards), hence the specific goal was to halve the proportion of children underweight over the period 1990 to 2015.

    Over the decade or so since the MDGs were set, our understanding of undernutrition and its measurement has advanced further. Underweight (weight for age) is a composite measure, which aggregates two different aspects of undernutrition, namely weight for height (or wasting, a measure of current nutritional status) and height for age (or stunting, a measure of long-run nutritional status). The underweight goal has served its purpose to focus attention on nutrition. Going forward we can improve on the original MDG target in two ways. First, stunting is a better indicator than underweight. And second, in a world with some regions with growing population, a goal of halving the proportion who are hungry is a weaker goal (easier to achieve) than one of halving the current number who are hungry.

  • 1.1 - alternative perspective

    • By Mike Holland, Independent Consultant, Ecometrics Research and Consulting
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 35-36

  • Summary

    As realization has grown of the impact of air pollution, so too has it become clear that the effects of individual pollutants are linked and that they cannot be considered purely in isolation. Health has become the prime driver of air pollution policies in North America and Europe since the mid-1990s, following new analysis that found detectable effects at levels previously considered “safe” and no evidence for an exposure threshold for fine particulates.

    Considering Larsen's chapter, the first point is that the focus is on epidemiology, which in isolation provides no proof of causality. However, the evidence in this case is considered to demonstrate causality, so the author's reliance on epidemiological data is not problematic. However, there is more problem with attribution of health impacts to fine particles because other pollutants such as ozone, SO2, NO2, and dioxins also have an effect. Ozone impacts may add 20 percent or more to the total damage quantified in European policy assessments for fine particles. NO2 may cause greater impacts still, perhaps of a similar magnitude to fine particles. Larsen's analysis may therefore be an underestimate of impacts because he focuses on PM2.5 alone.

    Another question is whether all particles have an equal impact on health. Although their different chemical and physical nature must make some difference, fine particles do generally appear to be harmful to health. Differentiating them is unlikely to make any significant changes to policy necessary.

    An important issue is the actual impact of pollution, which is inferred to be the sole cause of death. In fact, it could also be one of a number of contributory factors that affect longevity or, alternatively, a final trigger for death. Such questions areof relevance for valuing mortality effects. Larsen states that there are four times as many deaths attributed to air pollution as to infant and maternal undernutrition. However, this comparison may not be valid because child and maternal mortality accounts for a much higher quantity of lost life expectancy.

    Although mortality is clearly important, the effect on morbidity also warrants attention, for example, the impact of cancers, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. This adds to the health burden both directly and via the demands it places on the health system. We should also remember that the benefits of clean air policies are broader than health alone.

  • 4 - Beyond Civil War: The Costs of Interpersonal Violence

    • By James Fearon, Professor in School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, California, USA, Anke Hoeffler, Research Officer at the Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford, UK
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 67-88

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In the broad area of building stable and peaceful societies, the UN High-Level Panel (HLP) has identified several areas where the benefit-cost ratio may be very high and that have been relatively neglected by the development community to date. There are areas where the current economic and social costs are plausibly quite large, and where the amount of attention is very small in comparison to other areas such as health, education, and governance reform. We argue that there is a strong case for making societal violence reduction a priority in the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

    When thinking about the costs of violence, the international community has focused primarily on civil wars. However, for each battlefield death in civil war, about nine times as many people are killed in interpersonal disputes, including many killings related to drug trafficking, intimate partner violence (of all homicides, 7 percent female and 5 percent male), and killing of children (7 percent). About 43 percent of all female homicide victims were killed by a current or former intimate partner.

    Beyond the 418,000 homicides, reported crime figures suggest that there are about 300,000 cases of sexual violence, of which almost one-third are committed against children. There are also more than 2 million cases of assault. In addition to these reported crime figures, survey estimates suggest that about 275 million children are subjected to violent physical discipline in their homes, that 100 million girls and women live with female genital mutilation, and that about 30 percent of all partnered women have been subjected to intimate partner violence during their lifetime. This corresponds to about 769 million women.

    Thus, physical violence in societies is a much larger and more pervasive phenomenon than just civil war violence. Figures for homicides and violence in low- and middle-income countries are summarized in Figures 4.1 and 4.2. As we discuss later, a number of studies suggest that the strictly economic consequences are very large and, of course, will be much larger if we try to factor in social damage and individual suffering, and yet a tiny fraction of aid funding goes toward reducing societal violence or improving criminal justice systems.

  • 16 - Benefits and Costs of the Malaria Targets for the Post-2015 Consensus Project

    • By Neha Raykar, Nutrition Lead, Oxford Policy Management India
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 287-294

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Despite a 42 percent decrease in global malaria mortality since 2000, the disease was estimated to cause 627,000 estimated deaths worldwide in 2012. Ninety percent of all estimated deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, and 77 percent were in children under age five. Malaria-endemic countries also bear considerable indirect long-term costs associated with physical and cognitive retardation, malnutrition, anemia, and increased disease susceptibility.

    Macroeconomic nonhealth costs to the economy result from reduced labor market productivity and loss of tourism and business investment, in addition to lost capital and purchasing power (Mills and Shillcutt, 2004). Annual per-capita GNP growth also suffers; this is particularly costly for malaria-endemic countries, which are among the world's poorest.

    In addition to malaria being the focus of MDG 6, in 2007, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution calling for a 75 percent reduction in the global malaria burden by 2015. Between 2000 and 2010, the substantial expansion of malaria interventions has led to a 26 percent decline in malariaspecific mortality rates globally while the estimated global incidence of malaria declined by 17 percent. In the decade since 2000, 1.1 million deaths from malaria were averted and reported malaria cases reduced by more than 50 percent in 43 of the 99 countries with ongoing transmission (WHO, 2012).

    The past decade of malaria control has seen significant changes in antimalarial drug policies, mass distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets, and corresponding declines in the incidence of malaria (Fegan et al., 2007). A big push is being contemplated to eliminate malaria in areas of unstable transmission, with the eventual goal of global elimination (Smith et al., 2013). However, despite impressive gains, potential resistance to the first-line drug, artemisinin, looms large; besides declining financial support for malaria control, artemisinin resistance is likely one of the greatest threats to the gains made globally in rolling back malaria, while long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets (LLITNs) have yet to be fully deployed in some parts of the world where they could be useful.

  • 6 - Benefits and Costs of the Education Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

    • By George Psacharopoulos, Economics Expert, former London School of Economics and Political Science and the World Bank, UK
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 119-140

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The Post-2015 MDG discourse has generated an omnibus of education goals and targets to be fulfilled by 2030. The aim of this chapter is to have a closer look at such targets and identify the most concrete and prominent ones that are amenable to cost-benefit analysis. Based on existing research, the targets are evaluated according to findings in the economics of education literature. A short list of education targets that are likely to be most cost-effective if reached by 2030 is prioritized.

    Historical Perspective

    There is a long history of international organizations setting numerical targets for education. As of today, none of these targets has been achieved. For example, in 1961 UNESCO convened a high-level conference of African states in Addis Ababa on the development of education in Africa (UNESCO, 1961a). A goal was set that by 1980 primary enrolment in Africa should be 100 percent, relative to 40 percent in 1960 (UNESCO, 1961b). Yet, by 1980 the net primary enrollment ratio in sub- Saharan Africa stood at 56 percent (UNESCO, 1993).

    More recently, in 2011, theWorld Bank issued its education strategy for 2020 pledging learning for all, meaning that “all students … acquire the knowledge and skills they need to live happy, productive lives” (World Bank, 2011). Although the target year of this noble goal is six years away, one wonders how it would be achieved given the huge gaps in educational achievement documented in the recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2013b) PISA report.

    But setting never-fulfilled education targets is not only a phenomenon in developing countries. At the 2000 European Council in Lisbon, the Union set a goal that “the proportion of early school leavers should be no more than 10 percent by 2010” (European Commission, 2000). According to the latest Eurostat (2013) data, 14 percent of those ages 18 to 24 are early leavers from education and training, with at most a lower secondary education.

    It is a pity that no lessons were learned from past grandiose but unrealistic education target settings in the current post-2015 MDG discourse (Clemens et al., 2007; Psacharopoulos, 1989).

    Lack of finance is the most cited reason for failing to meet targets, calling for increased foreign aid (Global Campaign for Education, 2003; Oxfam, 2002).

  • 8 - Benefits and Costs of the IFF 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 171-188

  • Summary

    Introduction: Illicit Financial Flows

    This chapter covers the important issue of illicit financial flows (IFFs) and ways in which they may be addressed. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target to curtail IFFs (16.4) currently has no defined indicators. Discussions are ongoing, but there is a risk that policy focus is lost. The proposal made here is for a set of three indicators that offer clear policy prioritization and are likely to exhibit very high benefit-cost ratios.

    The limitations of cost-benefit analysis should be kept in mind throughout. The power of the SDGs’ predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) framework, lay in its contribution to setting norms rather than in the specifics of individual targets. Most important, perhaps, MDG 3 fixed the still-emerging norm on the need for gender equality – with a reach that has gone far beyond the handful of areas in which targets were actually specified.

    The value of economic cost-benefit analysis is of second order in comparison to that norm-setting role, and the UN Open Working Group rightly weighed political and social issues highly. Imagine that cost-benefit analysis showed that including the most marginalized 1 percent of populations politically or, in service basic provision, was prohibitively expensive. It is unthinkable that the principle (and norm) of universality would be sacrificed to a more “realistic” 99 percent target – which would effectively formalize a commitment to exclude the most excluded.

    Where cost-benefit analysis can play a role, however, is in relation to the other major contribution of the MDGs: the creation of a framework for shared policy prioritization among national and other actors. Two caveats apply: the extent of uncertainties in any assessment should be fully reflected when this analysis is weighed alongside other evidence, and the second-order nature of economic costs and benefits in the political decisions being taken should not be forgotten.

    In the current study, a narrowly economic approach provides conservative estimates because although the costs of the proposed targets are measured relatively well, only limited economic benefits are captured (ignoring the potential for political, social, and environmental benefits). In the case of illicit flows, therefore, there is unlikely to be a conflict between cost-benefit analysis and rights-based arguments.

  • 15 - Benefits and Costs of the HIV/AIDS Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

    • By Pascal Geldsetzer, Research Fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts, USA, David E. Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts, USA, Salal Humair, Senior Principal Research Scientist, Amazon.com, Inc., Till Bärnighausen, Alexander von Humboldt University Professor of Global Health, Heidelberg University, Germany and Adjunct Professor of Global Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts, USA and Lead for health systems research and impact evaluation, Africa Health Research Institute, Mtubatuba, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 277-286

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Thirty years after the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was first identified, the HIV epidemic continues to cause large-scale human suffering and economic losses. Since featuring prominently in the MDGs, HIV has received unprecedented global political and financial commitment, being allocated 25 percent of all international assistance for health in 2011. But, despite significant successes, the goal will not be achieved, and the HIV epidemic in sub- Saharan Africa is still one of the most important causes of loss of life and health. The global HIV response will thus have to be a major continued focus of national and international development strategies after 2015.

    Two Goals to Address the HIV Epidemic in the Most Affected Countries

    Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 70 percent of those living with HIV globally (UNAIDS, 2013b). Within Africa, the Southern region has been hit hardest by the epidemic, with Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe being termed hyperendemic (having an HIV prevalence greater than 15 percent among the adult population). We recommend two goals to address this:

    Goal 1: Achieve ART (antiretroviral therapy) coverage of at least 90 percent among HIV-infected adults with a CD4 count <350 cells/μL before expanding the HIV treatment scale-up to people with higher CD4 counts.

    Goal 2: Attain circumcision coverage of at least 90 percent among HIV-uninfected adult men.

    Why Focus ART First on Those Most in Need?

    Since the advent of ART, the WHO has gradually increased its recommended threshold for starting patients on ART to include increasingly healthy patients. WHO treatment thresholds are based on the CD4 count, a cell count that decreases in concentration with deteriorating immune system function. In 2011, a clinical trial, hailed as a game changer in the HIV field, provided evidence for even earlier initiation of ART. It showed that providing ART early in the course of the disease reduces the chance of an infected person passing HIV to an uninfected partner by 96 percent (Cohen et al., 2011). Currently, several large ongoing trials aim to establish the causal effect of providing ART to all HIV patients regardless of CD4 count, i.e., Treatment as Prevention (TasP), when implemented at the population level in sub-Saharan Africa (Essex, DeGruttola, Lebelonyane, and Habibi, 2013; Havlir and Kamya, 2013; Hayes et al., 2014; Iwuji et al., 2013; Stop AIDS Now! 2014).

  • Chapter 14 - Benefits and Costs of the Infant Mortality 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 266-276

  • Summary

    The High-Level Panel of Eminent Person (HLPEP) notes in its work on developing post-2015 goals that “..[i]nvesting more in health, especially in health promotion and disease prevention, like vaccinations, is a smart strategy to empower people and build stronger societies and economies“(United Nations 2014, p. 38). It argues that solutions for child mortality are simple and affordable, and that therefore all preventable deaths should be averted by 2030, with a specific aim “…for an upper threshold of 20 deaths per 1000 live births in all income quintiles of the population” “(United Nations 2014, p. 38). While estimating the feasibility of reducing infant deaths overall, we zoom in on neonatal mortality (deaths in the first 28 days of children’s life), which accounts for over 40 percent of total under-5 mortality today, and will become the main area to tackle for most countries if major progress in under-5 mortality is to be made over the next 15 years.

  • 8.1 - alternative perspective

    • By Peter Reuter, Professor in School of Public Policy and Department of Criminology, University of Maryland, USA
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 189-190

  • Summary

    Summary

    The issue of illicit financial flows came to prominence as a public policy issue with the publication of Raymond Baker's Capitalism's Achilles Heel in 2005, but it is striking that today we know little more about the issue. Moreover, all the current estimates of such flows are based on those of Global Financial Integrity, set up by Baker after his book was published, and use a single methodology. The state of the art on IFFs is essentially prescience, with no empirical basis for assessing the effectiveness of proposed policies. Nevertheless, Cobham does much to improve on the High- Level Panel's proposed objective. His goals are precise and, although ambitious, are not wholly unfeasible.

    One way to look at the possible consequences for IFFs is to examine the international money laundering control regime, aimed at many IFFrelated phenomena. This is a relatively wellresourced and high-profile effort, with all but a handful of countries claiming to have implemented the recommendations of the OECDaffiliated Financial Action Task Force (FATF). However, in practice it is striking how few countries, even among those that were progenitors of the system, such as the United States, France, and the UK, have close to a perfect scorecard. Nevertheless, the FATF can and does put countries on a “blacklist” for noncompliance and there is evidence that countries care about this.

    The FATF regime has led to important changes in the routines of the financial sector. Nonetheless, there is little evidence that opportunities for money laundering have been restricted. Indeed, one astonishing feature is that many major international banks flagrantly flout the regime. The Anti-Money Laundering (AML) system is a carefully designed and universally accepted framework to control an important method of protecting the fruits of crimes, but no one can show any evidence that it has had its intended effect of reducing the level of such crimes.

    What Cobham proposes is in effect a vast extension of the AML system, covering much more than criminally generated revenues, because it would also strike at that which is illicit, such as transfer pricing abuses, as well as the purely illegal. Although AML measures are inherently complex and varied, Cobham's three proposed rules seem much easier to design, implement, and monitor. Still, the AML experience is instructive in considering how the transparency requirements might be met.

  • 7 - Benefits and Costs of the Energy 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 143-167

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The global energy system is undergoing a rapid and significant transformation both from demand and supply perspectives. The former is due in large part to the growth and rapid urbanization of emerging economies, both of which are extremely energy intensive. The latter is due primarily to the “shale gas revolution,” the disaster at Fukushima, and the push for renewables. Governments are defining policies regulating all aspects of energy systems, including extraction, transportation, distribution, accessibility, fuel mix, transmission, and so on.

    The World Energy Council's definition of energy sustainability is based on three core dimensions – energy security, social/economic equity, and environmental sustainability. Policy objectives should strive to address these three partially conflicting dimensions.

    Further confounding the complexity of establishing appropriate targets are the following facts: there are currently about 1.3 billion people without electricity and 2.6 billion people who rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating; energy demand is expected to double by 2050; and there is a strong international desire to halve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate global warming. Energy planning must also be linked to goals and priorities in other sectors of the economy.

    Regional differences abound, with regions least able to finance an energy shift most in need of one. Energy poverty in Africa in particular is a priority as less than 30 percent of the population has access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. In Asia 700 million people still have no access to electricity, and almost 2 billion people still burn wood, dung, and crop waste to cook and to heat their homes (Asian Development Bank, 2014). Lack of access to modern forms of energy results in the use of more-polluting and-less sustainable fuels, including biomass.

    In this chapter we examine six potential targets for a post-2015 development agenda.

  • The zero target of increasing access to modern forms of energy to 100 percent of the population a. Universal provision of electrification b. Universal provision of modern cooking facilities

  • Doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement Globally

  • Doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix

  • 8.2 - alternative perspective

    • By Dev Kar, Chief Economist, Global Financial Integrity, USA, Tom Cardamone, Managing Director, Global Financial Integrity, USA
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 191-191

  • Summary

    Summary

    Global Financial Integrity (GFI) agrees with Cobham that the original targets proposed by the High-Level Panel (HLP) were undermined by framing them in dollars rather than percentage terms, that illicit flows are substantially larger than Overseas Development Aid, and that they adversely affect economic growth, development outcomes, inequality, and governance. However, in contrast to the challenge chapter, we believe that the Open Working Group's reframing of the original proposals both muddies the focus and detracts from the primary objective.

    We also feel that Cobham's proposals do not adequately advance the current state of play and therefore miss an opportunity to make significant progress. Although the proposed steps toward financial transparency are extremely important, they are already being addressed in numerous global for a, and great progress has been made toward their implementation. Their inclusion in the post-2015 SDG targets could therefore be seen as redundant.

    Financial transparency is only one side of the coin, and only limited progress can be made toward curtailing IFFs without also making efforts in source countries to detect and interdict misinvoiced trade. An appropriate SDG target would lead to developing country governments taking responsibility for addressing their part of the problem.

    We agree with Cobham that ”… the [current] specific proposal is flawed – but this does not imply that it should be dropped …” Rather, it should be changed in two important ways. First it should stand alone rather than being linked to reductions in corruption and related issues; our data suggest that a very low percentage of illicit flows is due to corruption and is likely under 20 percent of the total. Second, more precise language is needed than that used in the current draft. Specifically, it should read: “reduce illicit financial flows related to trade misinvoicing by 50 percent.”

    This concentrates on the largest part of the IFF problem (about 80 percent according to our data), depoliticizes the issue by eliminating any linkage to government corruption, and provides a specific role for donor countries and agencies to build capacity in customs departments in developing countries. It would have numerous benefits, particularly as a development enabler. Including an SDG target on IFFs will generate revenue needed to help achieve the other likely SDG targets such as ending malnutrition and achieving universal health coverage.

  • 25.1 - alternative perspective

    • By Aart Kraay, Economist in Development Research Group, World Bank
  • Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
  • Book:
    Prioritizing Development
    Published online:
    30 May 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018, pp 497-498

  • Summary

    Summary

    Hilderbrand raises a number of concerns about possible SDGs in the area of governance, which can be summarized as:

  • • Governance is difficult to define.

  • • Governance is difficult to measure.

  • • The effect of good governance on development outcomes is not well documented.

  • • The effectiveness of aid-financed interventions to promote good governance are not clear.

    • Although these points are all valid, I argue that they do not make governance targets either infeasible or undesirable. My argument is simply that there were similarly serious challenges to the MDG to “eradicate extreme poverty,” but this did not stop it being adopted and becoming a highly visible “flagship” MDG. Allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good risks missing the opportunity to have a governance SDG that renews international emphasis on the importance of good governance, both as intrinsically desirable and as a means to achieving other development goals. Definitions: Despite the conceptual and definitional challenges, the international community operationalized the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by setting three specific targets: to halve the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 per day, to achieve “full and productive employment and decent work for all,” and to halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger. A similar case can be made regarding governance. Despite the profusion of definitions, it is possible to identify a few common themes that are amenable to measurement. Most of them emphasize the importance of a capable state, operating under the rule of law, which is able to provide an array of public goods and be held accountable for failure to deliver them.

    Measurement: Agreeing to define “extreme poverty” in terms of the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day raises immense practical measurement challenges. Measuring governance similarly poses a wide range of practical challenges. The first important one is to strike an appropriate balance between subjective measures of perception of governance quality and corresponding objective measures. Despite the pejorative labelling of “soft” data in the case of surveys, both types of data can play an important role. Perceptions matter, as people will not, for example use the police or court services properly if they see them as corrupt. In contrast, “hard” indicators of laws or regulations on corrupt practices may not be useful without knowing how well they are enforced.

  • Chapter 1 - Benefits and Costs of Air Pollution 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 13-37

  • Summary

    Particulate air pollution is a major cause of premature death and disease. Household and outdoor air pollution together account for over 6 million deaths each year and a health cost burden of $2.3 trillion. The global health benefits of reaching a proposed range of PM2.5 control targets amounts to $1.4 trillion annually, with the benefits from reducing pollution from the use of solid fuels for cooking and heating greatly outweighing the costs. This is also an important route to improve outdoor air quality, especially in Asia. The relationship between health impacts and exposure to PM2.5 is highly non-linear, so that benefits become progressively larger as air quality is improved.

Page 90 of 287