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3071. Intellectual Property and Public Health: An Overview of the Debate with a Focus on U.S. Policy

Author:
Carsten Fink
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Over the past fifteen years, the United States and other developed countries have employed trade agreements to substantially strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical products in the developing world. The associated rules changes have already had an effect on pharmaceutical prices in developing countries, prompting conflicts between developing country governments seeking to promote drug access and Western pharmaceutical companies wishing to protect their exclusive rights. If anything, such conflicts are bound to intensify as more patent protected drugs enter pharmaceutical markets outside rich countries. This paper describes the global shift in intellectual property policies and employs economic analysis to evaluate its consequences for developing countries. It also puts forward several recommendations for policymakers in developing countries and in the United States, seeking to better reconcile innovation incentives and access needs.
Topic:
Economics, Health, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

3072. The Place Premium: Wage Differences for Identical Workers across the U.S. Border - Working Paper 148

Author:
Michael Clemens, Lant Pritchett, and Claudio E. Montenegro
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
We compare the wages of workers inside the United States to the wages of observably identical workers outside the United States—controlling for country of birth, country of education, years of education, work experience, sex, and rural-urban residence. This is made possible by new and uniquely rich microdata on the wages of over two million individual formal-sector wage-earners in 43 countries. We then use five independent methods to correct these estimates for unobserved differences between the productivity of migrants and non-migrants, as well as for the wage effects of natural barriers to international movement in the absence of policy barriers. We also introduce a selection model to estimate how migrants' wage gains depend on their position in the distribution of unobserved wage determinants both at the origin and at the destination, as well as the relationship between these positions. For example, in the median wage gap country, a typical Bolivian-born, Bolivian-educated, prime-age urban male formal-sector wage worker with moderate schooling makes 4 times as much in the US as in Bolivia. Following all adjustments for selectivity and compensating differentials we estimate that the wages of a Bolivian worker of equal intrinsic productivity, willing to move, would be higher by a factor of 2.7 solely by working in the United States. While this is the median, this ratio is as high as 8.4 (for Nigeria). We document that (1) for many countries, the wage gaps caused by barriers to movement across international borders are among the largest known forms of wage discrimination; (2) these gaps represent one of the largest remaining price distortions in any global market; and (3) these gaps imply that imply allowing labor mobility can reduce a given household's poverty to a much greater degree than most known in situ antipoverty interventions.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Nigeria, and Bolivia

3073. The Structural Transformation as a Pathway out of Poverty: Analytics, Empirics and Politics

Author:
Peter Timmer and Selvin Akkus
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
A powerful historical pathway of structural transformation is experienced by all successful developing countries, and this Working Paper presents the results of new empirical analysis of the process. Making sure the poor are connected to both the structural transformation and to the policy initiatives designed to ameliorate the distributional consequences of rapid transformation has turned out to be a major challenge for policy makers over the past half century. There are successes and failures, and the historical record illuminates what works and what does not. Trying to stop the structural transformation does not work, at least for the poor, and in fact can lead to prolonged immiseration. Investing in the capacity of the poor to cope with change and to participate in its benefits through better education and health does seem to work. Such investments typically require significant public sector resources and policy support, and thus depend on political processes that are themselves conditioned by the pressures generated by the structural transformation itself.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economics, and Poverty

3074. Bridging the Social Security Divide: Lessons From Abroad

Author:
R. Kent Weaver
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Efforts by President George W. Bush to promote major reforms in the Social Security retirement program have not led to policy change, but rather to increased polarization between the two parties. And the longer we wait to address Social Security's long-term funding problem, the bigger and more painful the changes will need to be.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

3075. China's Economic Rise -- Fact and Fiction

Author:
Albert Keidel
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
China's economy will surpass that of the United States by 2035 and be twice its size by midcentury, a new report by Albert Keidel concludes. China's rapid growth is driven by domestic demand—not exports—and will sustain high single-digit growth rates well into this century. In China's Economic Rise—Fact and Fiction, Keidel examines China's likely economic trajectory and its implications for global commercial, institutional, and military leadership.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

3076. The Time is Now: How world leaders should respond to the food price crisis

Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Global food prices are up 83 per cent compared with three years ago. The resulting food price crisis constitutes an unprecedented threat to the livelihoods and well-being of millions of rural and urban households who are net food buyers. Around the world, Oxfam International and many of its partners have seen soaring prices force people to eat less food or less nutritious food and drive poor households to cut back on health care, education, and other necessities. Women and children's nutritional levels are particularly vulnerable, as women often put men's consumption before their own.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economics, Humanitarian Aid, and International Trade and Finance

3077. Candidate Issue Index: Trade

Author:
Lael Brainard
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Compiled by Brookings Institution experts, this chart is part of a series of issue indices to be published during the 2008 Presidential election cycle. The policy issues included in this series were chosen by Brookings staff and represent the most critical topics facing America's next President. Available voting records and statements vary based on time in office. For candidates who have not been a Member of Congress, public statements are noted when available.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and America

3078. America's Infrastructure: Ramping Up or Crashing Down

Author:
Bruce Katz
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Infrastructure has a dramatic effect on the economic competitiveness of our nation, the health of our environment and our quality of life. And infrastructure—freight ports, airports, bridges, roads, rail and transit networks, water and sewer systems, web of channel communications—is the connective tissue of our nation. Smart policies and investments can enhance and further national prosperity and the health and vitality of metropolitan areas, where the bulk of our population lives and jobs are located.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

3079. The Future of Red, Blue and Purple America

Author:
Ruy Teixeira
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Political polarization in the United States has a number of causes, ranging from media hype to gerrymandering to hyper- ideological elites to cultural “sorting” between the parties. But there is another key contributor that is frequently overlooked: demographic and geographic changes in the electorate that have altered the sizes of different population groups and even shifted their political orientations over time. These changes have helped produce the current deadlock between coalitions of roughly equal size and opposed outlooks. But these same changes—since they will continue to alter group sizes and political orientations in the future—could also provide the impetus for unlocking this polarization and policy gridlock in the future.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and America

3080. Reform of Quota and Voting Shares in the International Monetary Fund: "Nothing" Is Temporarily Preferable to an Inadequate "Something"

Author:
Ralph C. Bryant
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
A prosperous, stable world economy is in the self interest of every nation—large or small, rich or poor. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a worldwide intergovernmental institution that can facilitate that prosperity and stability. Because every nation has a stake, each should participate in the IMF's governance and operations. The value to each nation of an effective IMF increases as the world economy and financial system become more integrated.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Organization, and International Political Economy