Administrator's blog

The book launch for Health and Growth in Brazil occurred in two of the country's biggest cities, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais.  In both cities the audience of about 150 spanned academia, government and the private sector.   Discussion in both focused on measuring health and the link to growth, and on institutions.  Concerns over equity, funding tradeoffs, and the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery dominated much of the discussion.  If early childhood development is so critical to child and adult health, and budgets are flat, where should cuts be made, and who decides?  Where economic benefits can be reaped from investments in health care services, issues of who pays across levels of government, and the role of patient contribution, were raised in the context of sustainable financing needs, an important next step in extending the results to policy.

The Commission on Growth and Development launched the much anticipated volume on Health and Growth this week. The launch took place in Brazil at  Banco de Desenvolvimento de Minas Gerais S.A. (BDMG) on June 15th. A second launch will take place on June 17th at the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Institute in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Former Brazilian Presidents
Fernando Henrique Cardoso  and Itamar Franco will chair the events.  Presenters and discussants from both events include volume co-editor Maureen Lewis (Advisor, World Bank), Andre Medici (Senior Economist, World Bank), Antonio Augusto Anastasia (Vice Governor, BDMG), Paulo Paiva (President, BDMG) and Alfonso Henriques (President, Fundação João Pinheiro), and Marcus Pestana, State Secretary of Health.  Danny Leipziger, Advisor to the Managing Director of the World Bank and Vice-Chair of the Growth Commission, will also present the findings of the Growth Report. Please access the health volume here.

NPR's Brenda Wilson reports on the UN's new initiative to provide healthcare to women and children whose health has been jeopardized since the onset of the financial crisis. The initiative targets 49 countries with the highest rates of maternal and child mortality; 9 million children die in their first year of life and half a million women die during child birth each year. Listen to the full report here.

In a paper prepared for the African Economic Research Consortium entitled, Endemic Diseases and African Economic Growth, David Weil estimates the quantitative effects of disease on different aspects of the economy in Africa. Weil points out that there already exists abundant information on how being poor leads to worse health outcomes. However, this study evaluates the reverse causality - how disease impacts different economic sectors in society. Weil contends that this information is crucial for policy makers in determining how much good will result from some course of action, and wil thus allow different policy options to be compared. Read more here (.pdf).

By Kate Bird, Program Leader, Growth and Equity Programme, Overseas Development Institute

We do not yet know precisely how the global financial crisis will affect people in low income developing countries. Information from the ground is partial and hazy. However, a study of ten countries, led by the Overseas Development Institute, shows the crisis is having a dynamic affect. The nature, severity and duration of impact will vary between and within countries, with the sharpest effects in the most globalised developing countries.

Viral Acharya, Matthew Richardson and Nouriel Roubini comment on the financial crisis, and offer recommendations to regulators on how to fix the system. Access the piece in the Financial Times here.

Michael Spence details the necessary steps needed for the Geithner plan to be implemented, and addresses the current criticisms of the plan. Follow the debate over the Geithner plan and comment on Spence's analysis here.

Nobel Laureates Michael Spence and Paul Krugman offered competing opinions on the potential effectiveness of U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Giethner's latest proposal to cleanse ailing banks of toxic assets. While Spence acknowledges that the plan is complex, he believes it is a step in the right direction. Krugman on the other hand believes Geithner is following the steps of former Secretary Hank Paulson in offering "cash for trash". Read more about it in Bloomberg's coverage of the debate here.

Growth Commission Chair Michael Spence was a guest on CNBC's Squawk Box this past week, where he discussed the Fed's recent announcement that it will purchase $300 bn in long term U.S. Treasury Bills, adding to the $750 billion worth of agency backed mortgages it plans to purchase this year. Spence lauded this move by the Fed, and stressed that the key to recovery is to unfreeze the credit markets. Additionally, Spence emphasized the attention that must be paid to making sure that developing countries recover from this crisis.  Inevitably, he said, the western countries will recover, but due to an increased propensity to save, they will not likely drive the same levels of aggregate demand that existed before the crisis. This shortfall will only be made up if recovery in the developing world keeps pace with the industrial countries. To watch the interview, please click here.

In a sobering editorial in Tuesday’s Financial Times, Trevor Manuel, the Finance Minister in South Africa, and member of the Growth Commission, presents the very real dichotomy facing a world searching for a way out of the current financial crisis.  On the one hand, world leaders can band together and “find appropriate instruments of governance through which the propulsive power or modern finance can be harnessed to serve a development agenda”. On the other hand, a failure to do so will result in “growth and social progress” continuing to be the “bonded servants of finance capital”.