Latest news with #CopenhagenConsensus
Wall Street Journal
22-07-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
U.S. Global Health Aid Is an Exemplar of Efficiency
It's good that in the end Senate Republicans saved some global health aid. As Bill Gates highlights in his op-ed, 'U.S. Aid for Global Health Is Saving Lives' (July 15), American health aid is remarkably efficient. My organization, the Copenhagen Consensus, has for decades worked with hundreds of the world's top economists and many Nobel laureates to identify the most cost-effective solutions to global challenges. Several American global health initiatives deliver amazing benefits for every dollar spent. Consider Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Our research shows that the childhood vaccinations Gavi funds currently save nearly four million lives a year. Each dollar spent delivers an astounding $286 in policy benefits. Other countries and philanthropists help achieve this, but the 13% of Gavi's budget that the U.S. contributed last year matters. That $400 million in American outlays alone will help protect 75 million additional children and prevent over 1.2 million deaths in the next five years.
Business Times
18-06-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Freer trade still delivers – if we share the gains wisely
AROUND the world, people are waking up to the benefits of freer trade. After years of free trade fatigue and growing protectionism, a majority of Americans now say the United States should pursue global free trade, while the European Union is striking free trade deals as fast as it can. Even regional geopolitical rivals China, South Korea and Japan have agreed to greater cooperation. The threat of a global tariff war has driven many to the conclusion that everyone is better off when countries specialise in what they're best at. This rosy view is a stark contrast to the vision of trade as a zero-sum game that other countries have won. And yet, the downsides of free trade are real: Images of the 'Rust Belt' of America have come to stand for the negative impacts of free trade not only with US voters but also globally. Miles of once-mighty factories were silenced and once-proud communities devastated when corporations shifted their manufacturing offshore. Both things can be true. The benefits and costs of free trade policies don't fall equally. Wealthy countries benefit relatively less from freer trade, and parts of their workforce carry a disproportionate burden. But despite this, peer-reviewed research by Copenhagen Consensus economists shows that freer trade is still overwhelmingly good even for rich countries. Real and substantial costs The researchers' economic model investigates what happens if we grow global trade by 5 per cent. There are real and substantial costs. Across the entire world, for all workers and into the future, the present-day cost would be almost one trillion dollars. That comes from adding up the impacts to the wage packets of affected workers who lose their jobs, or have to downsize to lower-paid roles, or end up abandoning the workforce altogether. Some 92 per cent of that cost occurs in developed countries. After all, this is where most of the import-exposed markets are. It is where wages are the highest and where workers are most at-risk from cheaper or better products from poor countries entering rich countries. These losses are real – a trillion dollars is a vast sum to anyone. But we also need to remember the substantial benefits of free trade. Indeed, the same shift that saw factories leave former industrial centres also drove incredible economies of scale and allowed consumers everywhere to buy cheap and often fairly well-made products from huge box-stores. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Middle-class Americans gain an estimated 29 per cent of their purchasing power from foreign trade. In other words, the average middle-class American can buy nearly one-third more for each dollar than if there was no trade. The effect is even bigger – 62 per cent – for the poorest tenth of American consumers. When we count the benefits of free trade in the rich OECD countries, these are much higher than the costs: US$6.7 trillion. In total, this means a US$7 return for each dollar of costs. Yes, governments should work harder to help the workers who would be most hurt by freer trade, but even after addressing the nearly one trillion in costs, there are over US$6 trillion in benefits to be enjoyed across the rich world. Any government would be foolish to ignore these much larger benefits, despite their substantial costs. Perhaps even more importantly, the research shows that free trade is hugely beneficial for poorer countries. This is why it is a tragedy that politicians have abandoned the multilateral free trade agenda altogether: Freer trade can generate huge gains for the world's poorest countries. When the world's poorest countries are better off, the whole world is a stronger, more stable place. Win-win for rich and poor The world's low and lower-middle income countries that are home to four billion people will suffer some costs from freer trade, but these are relatively low at US$15 billion. Yet, their gains from freer trade would be a fantastic US$1.4 trillion in benefits. Because the poorer world's economies are much smaller, this is a much bigger deal. And because their costs are much lower, each dollar in cost delivers US$95 in benefits. That's an astonishing return on investment. In a world grappling with inequality and economic uncertainty, freer trade remains one of the most powerful tools for shared global prosperity. While its costs – particularly in developed countries – are real and must be addressed with smarter, fairer policies, the benefits are too significant to ignore. With nearly US$7 in returns for every US$1 in cost for rich nations, and an extraordinary US$95 return for poorer countries, freer trade is a win-win. The path forward is not protectionism, but reform to make sure the gains of trade are not only greater, but are also better shared. Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and author of Best Things First
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Starmer will need to axe the triple lock to put Britain on a war footing
Foreign aid is a system under which poor people in rich countries are taxed to subsidise rich people in poor countries. So wrote the great Peter Bauer, a pioneering LSE economist who first exposed the aid-industrial-complex as a callous, immoral scam. He would have been stunned to discover that it was Keir Starmer – my unlikely new hero for one day only – who finally saw the light, taking a break from his Left-wing radicalism to outflank the Tories from the Right. Starmer's decision to slash foreign aid to bolster military spending, a trade-off long advocated by Nigel Farage, is inspired, despite having been taken out of fear of travelling empty-handed to Washington, rather than as a result of any ideological conversion. The PM is an accidental populist on this issue, buffeted by forces unleashed by Elon Musk's anti-waste DOGE and bounced into Middle England's dream policy combo by Donald Trump, but for once none of that matters. He should own his own policy, and ignore his Leftist base's inane, illogical bleatings. Lord Bauer's Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion revealed how government assistance can fuel corruption, kleptocratic despots and dependency, ruining the prospects of the ordinary people it purports to help. Development aid has more recently turned into a vehicle for Left-wing propaganda, woke imperialism, foreign interference, bogus green projects and job-creation schemes for sock puppet NGOs. UK taxpayers are spending thousands to study shrimp health in Bangladesh, £37,168 on a shark-diving code of conduct in the Maldives, £9.5 million supporting 'accountability and inclusion' in the Congo, £101 million on 'climate and ocean adaptation and sustainable transition' in Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Mozambique, according to contracts uncovered by The Procurement Files, an X account. Far from projecting soft power, we are seen as mugs with more money than sense, ripe for the taking with ever more absurd rackets such as paying billions to hand over Chagos or for colonial reparations. The drastic reduction in poverty across the world represents humanity's greatest triumph. It was almost entirely caused by poor nations' embrace of private property, free markets, open trade, domestic reforms, microfinance, foreign direct investment and voluntary assistance through remittances. Foreign aid from overseas governments made almost no impact, and was often counter-productive, with Andrei Schleifer of Harvard and William Easterly of New York University confirming Bauer's thesis. Aid has been useless at reducing climate change or meaningfully denting global migration volumes. Official assistance is of course welcome in extreme crises, such as earthquakes, wars or famines. There has been some success with government-funded public health, even if philanthropy has blazed the way. Starmer should focus his downsized budget on priorities outlined by Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus, including childhood immunisation. But the dismantling of Lord Cameron's legacy, cutting spending from 0.7 per cent of national income to 0.5 per cent (temporarily) under Boris Johnson and 0.3 per cent (permanently) under Starmer is a rare triumph for free-marketeers and anyone who values evidence above virtue-signalling. In fact, only 0.15 per cent or so of national income remains for genuine overseas aid once the cost of dealing with refugees in the UK is deducted. Yet using the proceeds to boost defence to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 was the easy bit: we will need to spend a lot more if we are to shoulder, with some European allies, the principal burden of defending the continent from Russia and other vile aggressors, while continuing to operate in the Pacific and Atlantic. Labour is refusing to answer whether spending on the Chagos betrayal (an obscenity Trump will hopefully kill) will be included in new totals. It envisages a 0.6 per cent of GDP rise in defence over this Parliament and the next, a derisory sum. Starmer's 3 per cent of GDP target (including 0.1 per cent reclassified from the intelligence agencies) by 2028-2032 will need to be sped up, and increased further, perhaps to 3.5 per cent. Even that may not be enough to rebuild our nuclear deterrent to Cold War levels, invest in new technologies, increase the size of the military and accumulate munition stockpiles. Where will Starmer find the money, given his non-negotiable spending schemes on Chagos, net zero, HS2, the NHS? Rachel Reeves is already facing a crisis next month: her Spring Statement will require more fiscal tightening in a vain attempt to remain in the OBR's good books. Further tax rises would be a self-defeating catastrophe: we are on the wrong side of the Laffer curve and at or close to the economy's taxable limit. Growth is near zero, spending is rising and revenues undershooting. Even before any extra cash for defence, Reeves was gearing up for spending cuts. Their scale will need to be greater than any politician's worst nightmare. Cameron's obsession with foreign aid epitomised post-Blairite decadence. The 'centrist dad' ruling class took growth for granted, despite the financial crisis, and focused on redistributing wealth rather than creating it. They lost interest in the state's core nightwatchman functions – defence, policing, the courts and prisons, all of which were cut – and positioned themselves as managers of an inexorably expanding middle class welfare state centred around the cult of 'our NHS'. It was a calamitous error. The peace dividend, always a chimera, has now turned into a war levy. Tens of billions more will need to be found. Every Left-wing luxury – free museums, lavish subsidies to the arts – will need to be axed as the state pivots back to core functions. Some truly sacred cows will also need to be slayed for the numbers to add up. The two greatest areas of spiraling spending are working-age benefits and expenditure on pensioners, including the state pension, pensioner benefits, social care and the NHS. The first category is rocketing, with millions who should be in work deciding that they wish to be paid to do nothing. Labour's reforms are too soft. But pensioners too will regrettably need to take a hit. The triple-lock in particular will become unaffordable, and will need to be axed. Free bus passes may need to be means-tested. It will anger pensioners who spent all their life doing the right thing, but Britain has neglected our external and internal defences for too long. As Labour's – yes, Labour's – decision to slash foreign aid demonstrates, our long holiday from history is over. 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Telegraph
26-02-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Starmer will need to axe the triple lock to put Britain on a war footing
Foreign aid is a system under which poor people in rich countries are taxed to subsidise rich people in poor countries. So wrote the great Peter Bauer, a pioneering LSE economist who first exposed the aid-industrial-complex as a callous, immoral scam. He would have been stunned to discover that it was Keir Starmer – my unlikely new hero for one day only – who finally saw the light, taking a break from his Left-wing radicalism to outflank the Tories from the Right. Starmer's decision to slash foreign aid to bolster military spending, a trade-off long advocated by Nigel Farage, is inspired, despite having been taken out of fear of travelling empty-handed to Washington, rather than as a result of any ideological conversion. The PM is an accidental populist on this issue, buffeted by forces unleashed by Elon Musk's anti-waste DOGE and bounced into Middle England's dream policy combo by Donald Trump, but for once none of that matters. He should own his own policy, and ignore his Leftist base's inane, illogical bleatings. Lord Bauer's Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion revealed how government assistance can fuel corruption, kleptocratic despots and dependency, ruining the prospects of the ordinary people it purports to help. Development aid has more recently turned into a vehicle for Left-wing propaganda, woke imperialism, foreign interference, bogus green projects and job-creation schemes for sock puppet NGOs. UK taxpayers are spending thousands to study shrimp health in Bangladesh, £37,168 on a shark-diving code of conduct in the Maldives, £9.5 million supporting 'accountability and inclusion' in the Congo, £101 million on 'climate and ocean adaptation and sustainable transition' in Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Mozambique, according to contracts uncovered by The Procurement Files, an X account. Far from projecting soft power, we are seen as mugs with more money than sense, ripe for the taking with ever more absurd rackets such as paying billions to hand over Chagos or for colonial reparations. The drastic reduction in poverty across the world represents humanity's greatest triumph. It was almost entirely caused by poor nations' embrace of private property, free markets, open trade, domestic reforms, microfinance, foreign direct investment and voluntary assistance through remittances. Foreign aid from overseas governments made almost no impact, and was often counter-productive, with Andrei Schleifer of Harvard and William Easterly of New York University confirming Bauer's thesis. Aid has been useless at reducing climate change or meaningfully denting global migration volumes. Official assistance is of course welcome in extreme crises, such as earthquakes, wars or famines. There has been some success with government-funded public health, even if philanthropy has blazed the way. Starmer should focus his downsized budget on priorities outlined by Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus, including childhood immunisation. But the dismantling of Lord Cameron's legacy, cutting spending from 0.7 per cent of national income to 0.5 per cent (temporarily) under Boris Johnson and 0.3 per cent (permanently) under Starmer is a rare triumph for free-marketeers and anyone who values evidence above virtue-signalling. In fact, only 0.15 per cent or so of national income remains for genuine overseas aid once the cost of dealing with refugees in the UK is deducted. Yet using the proceeds to boost defence to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 was the easy bit: we will need to spend a lot more if we are to shoulder, with some European allies, the principal burden of defending the continent from Russia and other vile aggressors, while continuing to operate in the Pacific and Atlantic. Labour is refusing to answer whether spending on the Chagos betrayal (an obscenity Trump will hopefully kill) will be included in new totals. It envisages a 0.6 per cent of GDP rise in defence over this Parliament and the next, a derisory sum. Starmer's 3 per cent of GDP target (including 0.1 per cent reclassified from the intelligence agencies) by 2028-2032 will need to be sped up, and increased further, perhaps to 3.5 per cent. Even that may not be enough to rebuild our nuclear deterrent to Cold War levels, invest in new technologies, increase the size of the military and accumulate munition stockpiles. Where will Starmer find the money, given his non-negotiable spending schemes on Chagos, net zero, HS2, the NHS? Rachel Reeves is already facing a crisis next month: her Spring Statement will require more fiscal tightening in a vain attempt to remain in the OBR's good books. Further tax rises would be a self-defeating catastrophe: we are on the wrong side of the Laffer curve and at or close to the economy's taxable limit. Growth is near zero, spending is rising and revenues undershooting. Even before any extra cash for defence, Reeves was gearing up for spending cuts. Their scale will need to be greater than any politician's worst nightmare. Cameron's obsession with foreign aid epitomised post-Blairite decadence. The 'centrist dad' ruling class took growth for granted, despite the financial crisis, and focused on redistributing wealth rather than creating it. They lost interest in the state's core nightwatchman functions – defence, policing, the courts and prisons, all of which were cut – and positioned themselves as managers of an inexorably expanding middle class welfare state centred around the cult of 'our NHS'. It was a calamitous error. The peace dividend, always a chimera, has now turned into a war levy. Tens of billions more will need to be found. Every Left-wing luxury – free museums, lavish subsidies to the arts – will need to be axed as the state pivots back to core functions. Some truly sacred cows will also need to be slayed for the numbers to add up. The two greatest areas of spiraling spending are working-age benefits and expenditure on pensioners, including the state pension, pensioner benefits, social care and the NHS. The first category is rocketing, with millions who should be in work deciding that they wish to be paid to do nothing. Labour's reforms are too soft. But pensioners too will regrettably need to take a hit. The triple-lock in particular will become unaffordable, and will need to be axed. Free bus passes may need to be means-tested. It will anger pensioners who spent all their life doing the right thing, but Britain has neglected our external and internal defences for too long. As Labour's – yes, Labour's – decision to slash foreign aid demonstrates, our long holiday from history is over.
