New Research disputing Connection Between Health and Economic Development
Having just finished Jeffrey Sach’s Book, Common Wealth, I was impressed in his articulate and concise understanding of the world’s current problems. I know of no better identification and articulation. In fact, it (along with Lester Brown’s Plan 3.0) made me want a prescription for anti-depressants. However, Sach’s analysis of solutions (unlike Lester’s work) was found to be desperately needing. Interestingly, on one our layovers returning from Europe I picked up the November 22, 2008 copy of the Economist, and there in black and white (p. 90), was an article on two recent studies confirming my misgivings over both his view of development economics ( or lack of ecological economic training), and the decades of poorly spent development money. I have complained about this for sometime, mostly to friends and anyone else who would listen, mostly receiving the “he is such an embarrassment, keep him off the stage” look.
The two studies, one by MIT (Acemoglu and Johnson, “Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth”); and the second by Brown University (Ashraf, Lest and Weil, “When Does Improving Health Raise GDP”), show that investing massively in human health improvement, as we are doing, does not result in immediate improvement in economic development. In fact, it actually causes serious problems, often delaying development for decades. It is obvious that what investments in human health do (and don’t get me wrong as I believe in helping people from a purely humanitarian standpoint, but let’s do it smartly, maximizing investments with the limited resources we throw at it), is to bring more humans through the perils of childhood into adulthood. Why is this bad? It is a proverbial no-brainer to anyone who has endured Psychology 101 rat study data (don’t knock the rats as they are profoundly more like us than you think), we overpopulate.
See:
http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/2129
http://ideas.repec.org/p/bro/econwp/2008-7.html
Given the scarcity of resources, poor resource management, control of these resources through horrendous graft and corruption, mis-valuation of resources through GDP and GNP measures, etc. that characterize so many of these developing countries and our development policy, it is no wonder that more people surviving means less for everyone else, crushing what little possibility that anyone can eek out an existence. “Blasphemy!” I can hear the health and development community (Christian fundamentalists and many of my “bleeding heart” friends) scream. But this data from these reports seem to confirm what has been obvious. The way to development is not through human health initiatives, though it is an important part, but through a myriad of other reforms, of which empowerment of women, population planning and better natural resource management are likely at the top of the list. Our human economy is dependent on and subset of the natural capital of this planet, and we are doing a terrible job of taking care of it (much less creating proper valuations). This new research data does not confirm directly this hypothesis, but it would make sense (given the rat research) that if your natural environment is conducive to stable populations (all populations, not just humans), then you will likely create a foundation for development that is more lasting.
(SEE BBC News "Population: The elephant in the room," Environmentalists must accept that uncontrolled population growth threatens to undermine efforts to save the planet. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7865332.stm >)
Which brings me back to Sach’s book. Nowhere does he mention market externalities and the need to use market economies (if we can so trust them, given our recent global meltdown) to properly value natural capital. What is so frustrating is the billions of dollars we have spent on human health initiatives, that have actually contributed to long term worsening of conditions within these developing countries. Organizations, like The Gates Foundation, the largest Foundation in the world bolstered by the billions of Warren Buffet, have a central focus on human health, at the expense of most everything else. Let us hope/pray that the development community reads this research and better directs our limited resources to development policies that offer the “bigger bangs for the buck.” And that cheap Americans, who think they give, but in fact, are the last of the western world in percentage of GDP in giving, start giving more. Critical are strategies of integrated conservation and development and fundamentally restructuring our global economies to properly value the truly important things, like clean air, water, biodiversity, human labor and energy.