Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems: Costs and Benefits

Link: Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems
I heard about the Copenhagen Consensus for the first time, and went to check out their website.

Copenhagen Consensus 2008  - The best solutions to 10 of the world's biggest challenges, Copenhagen, May, 2008

More than 55 international economists, including 4 Nobel Laureates, will assess more than 50 solutions and assemble a list of priorities for everyone involved in solving the world's biggest challenges.

The aim of CC08 is to take stock of the world's biggest problems and the most promising solutions and provide informed input into the policy making process  surrounding efforts to deal with these problems. CC08 will revisit issues from CC04,  as well as take up new issues in the light of improved knowledge of the state of the world since 2004. CC08 will provide an in-depth assessment of the costs and benefits of solutions to some of the biggest challenges the world is facing today.

I find myself troubled by a couple things about their approach.  First, they assume that the way to solve problems is to throw money at them, create programs to "do something," and that therefore it makes sense to consider the magnitude of each problem, the dollar costs of "doing something," and the benefits of doing that something.   I think they're thinking inside the box, and need to get outside of their box.

Second, it seems to me that they are looking at the wrong side of the budget: they're looking largely at the spending side, not at the revenue side.  From time to time, one hears it said that a budget is a moral document.  That almost always leads to a discussion of how an entity -- usually a government body -- spends its money.  But if we could get outside that "spending" box, and look at the revenue side of the budget -- and get ourselves outside of the income tax box, we might be able to devise a solution that relieves many of our most pressing social problems.

The problem with that sort of thinking, of course, is that there are lots of vested interests, powerful individuals and groups and constituencies who are benefiting just fine from our current way of doing things, and would look unkindly on something that would disturb the current structure -- the structure that provides

• 33% of our wealth to 1% of us;
• 24% of it to 4% of us;
• 12% to 5% of us;
• 12% to 40% of us;
• -- and 3% to 50% of us.

(US, 2004 -- Source: http://www.wealthandwant.com/issues/wealth/50-40-5-4-1.htm, Table W50-2, line 1, columns 8 through 12)  They don't want the boat rocked, thank you very much!  If you can solve these problems without rocking their boats, have fun!  But don't rock their boat; there isn't a long career path in rocking their boats.  (See also: Misapplications of the 80/20 rule)

But suppose we could get beyond the "don't rock the '33% for 1%' boat" approach to things. 

• Suppose we started to look beyond the income tax for our revenue. 
• Suppose we started treating the commons as if they belonged to all of us instead of permitting their privatization by usurpers. 
• Suppose we started collecting the economic rent -- the unearned increment -- from those who aren't earning it anyway, and treated it as our common treasure (and treated that which people do create as 100% private property, not subject to taxation).

I'm not talking about us telling other countries what to do. I'm talking about looking at the speck in our own eye, and removing it  -- ASAP!  Yesterday! -- before we attempt to tell other countries how to treat their own fellowmen, or try to "fix" them. 

Look at the list of "problems" cited below.  The word POVERTY does not appear on it.   If we could relieve poverty, how many of the others would disappear -- evaporate?  If we could protect our environment from despoilation -- theft -- how many others on the list would disappear?   

The website features a book -- Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems :Costs and Benefits, Edited by Bjørn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School

NGOs, and individual activists there is no shortage of ideas for resolving them. However, even if all governments were willing to spend more money on solving the problems, we cannot do it all at once. We have to prioritize; and in order to do this we need a better sense of the costs and benefits of each ‘solution’. This book offers a rigorous overview of twenty-three of the world’s biggest problems relating to the environment, governance, economics, and health and population.

Leading economists provide a short survey of the state-of-the-art analysis and sketch out policy solutions for which they provide cost-benefit ratios. A unique feature is the provision of freely downloadable software which allows readers to make their own cost-benefit calculations for spending money to make the world a better place.

Contents 

1. Introduction Bjørn Lomborg;

Part I. Economy:  2. Financial instability Peter Blair Henry; 3. Lack of intellectual property rights Keith E. Maskus; 4. Money laundering Donato Masciandaro; 5. Subsidies and trade barriers Kym Anderson;

Part II. Environment: 6. Air pollution Guy Hutton; 7. Climate change Gary Yohe; 8. Deforestation Henk Folmer and G. Cornelis van Kooten; 9. Land degradation Ian Coxhead and Ragnar Oygard; 10. Loss of biodiversity Dan Biller; 11. Vulnerability to natural disasters Roger A. Pielke;

Part III. Governance: 12. Arms proliferation Paul Dunne; 13. Conflicts Paul Collier; 14. Corruption Susan Rose-Ackerman; 15. Lack of education Peter Orazem; 16. Terrorism Daniel Linotte;

Part IV. Health and Population: 17. Drugs Jefrey A. Miron; 18. Diseases Dean Jamison; 19. Lack of people of working age Robert E. Wright and Katerina Lisenkova; 20. Living conditions of children Harry Anthony Patrinos; 21. Living conditions of women Brinda Viswanathan; 22. Malnutrition/hunger Jere R. Behrman, Harold Alderman and John Hoddinott; 23. Unsafe water and lack of sanitation Guy Hutton; 24. Population: migration Michael J. Greenwood

The world has many pressing problems.  But if, through a single tax reform, we could remove poverty from the list, and revise the incentives that produce despoilation of our environment, we would be well on our way to solutions.