How to fight malaria by slashing “killer tariffs”

Esther Ann Bøler, Andreas Moxnes, Karen-Helene Ulltveit-Moe , 18 July 2012With trade barriers rising, the time is right to refresh the evidence that openness to trade comes with substantial benefits. This column focuses on the complementarity between R&D and foreign sourcing.

Daniel Lederman, Lixin Colin Xu, 17 October 2010Foreign direct investment has been an important component in development success stories around the world. This column explores why southern African countries have not been part of this story. Using newly available data it finds that FDI can help development and provide positive spillovers to the local economy. But Africa must have strong fundamentals to attract investment – in particular, greater openness to trade.

Burkina Faso health authorities plan next year to hand out 6.6 million mosquito nets in a bid to tackle malaria, the main cause of death in the poor west African country, officials said Monday.Between 46 and 56 percent of annual cases of hospitalisation in Burkina Faso concern malaria patients, but the disease still kills 15,000 people per year, mainly children under five, the health ministry stated.

Oliver Falck, Christina Günther, Stephan Heblich, William Kerr, 11 February 2013Governments around the world are fostering industrial ‘clusters’, hoping to create agglomeration economies. Using the political division of Germany in 1949, this column argues that heightened firm density can raise costs for incumbent firms in addition to the often-cited agglomeration benefits. This is important for policymakers contemplating efforts to promote their local areas by targeted cluster initiatives and bidding to attract large firms.

One of professional anti-traders' more, umm, "sophisticated" criticisms of US free trade agreements is that they create frightening new investment powers for foreign corporations.  In short, protectionists claim that "NAFTA-style" FTAs are just horrible because, among other things, they allow foreign corporations to challenge domestic health, consumer or safety regulations, and, if they win, to receive compensation from the offending government.

Michael Stolpe, 22 March 2013The crisis has shot holes in government budgets devoted to pro-growth public goods. This column argues that health-related public goods support long-term economic growth. Despite governments’ usual focus on spending related to jobs – such as education or welfare to work programmes – health should not be forgotten.Full Article: Public investments for long-term economic growth: the case of health

Former Minnesota Governor and GOP Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty delivered a rousing speech today on his economic vision for America.

Tito Cordella, Eduardo Levy-Yeyati, 18 April 2010Is the international-lender-of-last-resort IMF agenda passé? This column argues that the IMF could act as a “central bank swap clearing house” – an independent entity that manages existing and enhanced central bank swap agreements in one liquidity network for eligible countries and stands ready to step in with traditional programmes if liquidity fails. Full Article: Global safety nets: The IMF as a swap clearing house