Жаһандық әл-ауқатты арттыру жобасы: экономистердің талдауы

Welfare economics project

a project by economists
Copenhagen Consensus is a project that seeks to establish priorities for advancing global welfare using methodologies based on the theory of welfare economics, using cost–benefit analysis. It was conceived and organized around 2004 by Bjørn Lomborg, the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and the then director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute. The project is run by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which is directed by Lomborg and was part of the Copenhagen Business School, but it is now an independent 501(c)(3) non profit organisation registered in the USA. The project considers possible solutions to a wide range of problems, presented by experts in each field. These are evaluated and ranked by a panel of economists. The emphasis is on rational prioritization by economic analysis. The panel is given an arbitrary budget constraint and instructed to use cost–benefit analysis to focus on a bottom line approach in solving/ranking presented problems. The approach is justified as a corrective to standard practice in international development, where, it is alleged, media attention and the "court of public opinion" results in priorities that are often far from optimal.

The project has held conferences in 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012. The 2012 conference ranked bundled micronutrient interventions the highest priority, and the 2008 report identified supplementing vitamins for undernourished children as the world’s best investment. The 2009 conference, dealing specifically with global warming, proposed research into marine cloud whitening (ships spraying seawater into clouds to make them reflect more sunlight and thereby reduce temperature) as the top climate change priority, though climate change itself is ranked well below other world problems. In 2011 the Copenhagen Consensus Center carried out the Rethink HIV project together with the RUSH Foundation, to find smart solutions to the problem of HIV/AIDS. In 2007 looked into which projects would contribute most to welfare in Copenhagen Consensus for Latin America in cooperation with the Inter American Development Bank. The initial project was co sponsored by the Danish government and The Economist. A book summarizing the Copenhagen Consensus 2004 conclusions, Global Crises, Global Solutions, edited by Lomborg, was published in October 2004 by Cambridge University Press, followed by the second edition published in 2009 based on the 2008 conclusions.

Given the budget restraints, they found 16 investments worthy of investment (in descending order of desirability): each about a challenge that was discussed, and Slate readers could make their own ranking, voting for the solutions which they thought were best. Slate readers' ranking corresponded with that of the Expert Panel on many points, including the desirability of bundled micronutrient intervention; however, the most striking difference was in connection with the problem of overpopulation. Family planning ranked highest on the Slate priority list, whereas it didn't feature in the top 16 of the Expert Panel's prioritisation.

Eight economists met May 24–28, 2004 at a roundtable in Copenhagen. A series of background papers had been prepared in advance to summarize the current knowledge about the welfare economics of 32 proposals ("opportunities") from 10 categories ("challenges"). For each category, one assessment article and two critiques were produced. After a closed door review of the background papers, each of the participants gave economic priority rankings to 17 of the proposals (the rest were deemed inconclusive).

The panel agreed to rate seventeen of the thirty two opportunities within seven of the ten challenges. The rated opportunities were further classified into four groups: Very Good, Good, Fair and Bad; all results are based using cost–benefit analysis.

The highest priority was assigned to implementing certain new measures to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS. The economists estimated that an investment of $27 billion could avert nearly 30 million new infections by 2010. Policies to reduce malnutrition and hunger were chosen as the second priority. Increasing the availability of micronutrients, particularly reducing iron deficiency anemia through dietary supplements, was judged to have an exceptionally high ratio of benefits to costs, which were estimated at $12 billion. Third on the list was trade liberalization; the experts agreed that modest costs could yield large benefits for the world as a whole and for developing nations. The fourth priority identified was controlling and treating malaria; $13 billion costs were judged to produce very good benefits, particularly if applied toward chemically treated mosquito netting for beds.

The fifth priority identified was increased spending on research into new agricultural technologies appropriate for developing nations. Three proposals for improving sanitation and water quality for a billion of the world’s poorest followed in priority (ranked sixth to eighth: small scale water technology for livelihoods, community managed water supply and sanitation, and research on water productivity in food production). Completing this group was the 'government' project concerned with lowering the cost of starting new businesses.

Ranked tenth was the project on lowering barriers to migration for skilled workers. Eleventh and twelfth on the list were malnutrition projects – improving infant and child nutrition and reducing the prevalence of low birth weight. Ranked thirteenth was the plan for scaled up basic health services to fight diseases.

Ranked fourteenth to seventeenth were: a migration project (guest worker programmes for the unskilled), which was deemed to discourage integration; and three projects addressing climate change (optimal carbon tax, the Kyoto Protocol and value at risk carbon tax), which the panel judged to be least cost efficient of the proposals.

The panel found that all three climate policies presented have "costs that were likely to exceed the benefits". It further stated "global warming must be addressed, but agreed that approaches based on too abrupt a shift toward lower emissions of carbon are needlessly expensive." In regard to the science of global warming, the paper presented by Cline relied primarily on the framework set by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and accepted the consensus view on global warming that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the primary cause of the global warming. Cline relies on various research studies published in the field of economics and attempted to compare the estimated cost of mitigation policies against the expected reduction in the damage of the global warming. Cline used a discount rate of 1.5%. (Cline's summary is on the project webpage ) He justified his choice of discount rate on the ground of "utility based discounting", that is there is zero bias in terms of preference between the present and the future generation (see time preference). Moreover, Cline extended the time frame of the analysis to three hundred years in the future. Because the expected net damage of the global warming becomes more apparent beyond the present generation(s), this choice had the effect of increasing the present value cost of the damage of global warming as well as the benefit of abatement policies.

Quiggin argued that the members of the 2004 panel, selected by Lomborg, were "generally towards the right and, to the extent that they had stated views, to be opponents of Kyoto." In order to achieve a true consensus, I think Lomborg would've had to invite ecologists, social scientists concerned with justice and how climate change impacts and policies are often inequitably distributed, philosophers who could challenge the economic paradigm of "one dollar, one vote" implicit in cost–benefit analyses promoted by economists, and climate scientists who could easily show that Lomborg's claim that climate change will have only minimal effects is not sound science. Lomborg countered criticism of the panel membership by stating that "Sachs disparaged the Consensus 'dream team' because it only consisted of economists. But that was the very point of the project. Economists have expertise in economic prioritization. It is they and not climatologists or malaria experts who can prioritize between battling global warming or communicable disease".